The best traffic-free bike rides around Givrezac

The choir, narrower than the nave, extends over two bays bounded by pointed arches supported by columns with smooth capitals. The apse, with its pure lines and semi-dome vault, has its perimeter adorned with five Romanesque arches with small columns. Double columns separate three arched windows similar to those in the choir. A few specifically Romanesque capitals, apart from those in the square, are noteworthy in this otherwise very interesting church: a head studded with birds, a child teasing a large monster's head, etc. The bell, dated 1583, has been listed in the Historical Furniture. At the end of the right transept, a large marble plaque details the numerous benevolent deeds of "a virtuous man who has been buried in the church since 1782" and who had forbidden in his will that his name be inscribed on his tomb. As the church also bears a coat of arms, that of Guy de Monconseil, who died at that time, it is not impossible to unravel the mystery of this anonymity. In 1877, a Marquis de Monconseil, among other charitable works, founded a large hospice in Tesson where the poor were received. Near the church, on the site of the old cemetery, stands a beautiful 15th-century hosanna cross.

The church of St. Gregory of Tesson dates, in its core, from the 12th and perhaps the 11th century, but what remains of the visible parts dates from the 13th century, with alterations in the 14th and 15th centuries. The current bell tower was built around 1880 in a Romanesque-Gothic style, where the abundance of pinnacles, awning windows, canted corners, and balustrades replace the absent archaeological interest. It rises on the side of the nave, in the west corner of the left transept. This building, dedicated to Saint Gregory, is built on a classical plan, with a single nave, a transept with apses, a choir, and a semicircular apse. The façade, in pure Saintonge style and with its beautiful lines, includes a vast semicircular portal flanked by two blind bays, a gallery on the first floor, and a gable. The gallery arches no longer exist; When the gable was built in the 18th century, they were removed. This façade, framed by tall, separate columns, is unfortunately obstructed, like too many churches today, by trees planted at the time of the suppression of cemeteries. These trees now obscure, here a façade, there an apse, elsewhere an interesting detail. Municipalities, aware of the honor of having such works of art on their land, should not only maintain them, but also clear them and strive to highlight them. The five arches of the portal, simply adorned with a string of diamond points, rest on columns raised on a bench. Above, unarced columns, single or double, surmounted by crocketed capitals, have very wide abacuses that form as many consoles. At each end of the solid gable wall, topped by a cross with an escutcheon, stands a statue. One did not escape mutilation. The nave has two vaulted bays with crossed ogival arches with three tori which, with the formerets, rest on two strong columns and two smaller ones topped with crocketed or foliate capitals. The smaller ones support lateral arches, each framing a semicircular window. At the top of the walls, curious little oculi of an unusual design also open—a rare detail in Saintonge; one is shaped like a crescent and fits within a circumference; another imitates a four-leaf clover. These openings were added at the time of the vaulting's restoration, that is, in the 14th century. In the square of the transept, four blocks of eight columns are connected by pointed arches. This square, now vaulted like the bays of the nave, was originally covered by a dome surmounted by the old bell tower, destroyed during the war against the English. Each side of this bell tower was adorned with two round-arched windows with stringcourses. The base of the first floor is still visible. The voluminous columns that border the square transept are remarkable. The columns of varying sizes all have capitals whose ornamentation of acanthus leaves or beaded garlands extends onto the flats of the pilasters in a frieze form. This very fine and meticulous decoration produces, despite numerous mutilations, a great artistic effect. The very deep transept gives the whole the shape of a Greek cross. The transepts, vaulted in a pointed barrel, are illuminated by round-arched windows. The apse of the one on the left features two curious small capitals that surmount the small columns of the entrance arch. Their large, well-crafted abacuses extend into a beautifully sculpted cordon around the entire half-circumference and extend into a miter, supporting the base of the semi-domed vault. This apse is externally adorned with four groups of two slender, twin columns forming light buttresses.

The church of Notre-Dame in Rioux was built in the second half of the 12th century (around 1160) on the foundations of an older and smaller sanctuary, of which some traces remain in the antechoir. The church of Saint-Eutrope in Saintes (consecrated in 1096) served as a model for the builders of Rioux. It underwent numerous and significant modifications over the following centuries, particularly in the 13th and 15th centuries. The nave, the western portal, and the apse date from the early and second half of the 12th century. The south side chapel and its portal date from the second half of the 12th century. The church originally had a bell tower above the fourth bay of the nave. Strong columns attached to pilasters attest to this original purpose. The north side chapels, former seigneurial chapels, and the north exterior door date from the late 15th and early 16th centuries. They were built by Baron de Rioux. The gable of the western façade was pierced with a round opening and topped by a square bell tower with faces adorned with twin trefoiled windows in the 15th century. The 1583 bell was replaced in 1867 by a 611 kg bell cast by Master Amédée Bollée. The nave has a lowered barrel vault in 1860. It has three bays separated by strong half-columns backed by slightly projecting pilasters. Their transoms receive the projections of large pointed arches, each framing a small, very narrow Romanesque window. The first bay houses a small gallery surmounting a porch and built between the two large masonry blocks supporting the bell tower. This bay has a ribbed vault with a large bell hole in the center. Two double chapels, to the left and right, form the transept. They connect to the nave and the choir through large pointed bays; ribbed vaults cover them. On the south arm of the transept, a second Romanesque doorway opens, on the west side, with arches decorated with stringcourses. The semicircular apse, separated from the choir by an arch resting on two columns with capitals, has a half-dome ceiling and is lit by five semicircular windows. Columns rising from the ground separate them. The upper part of the columns is broken in a zigzag pattern and they seem to buckle under a weight that overwhelms them. The columns are topped with capitals carved with acanthus leaves, on which lowered arches rest. Each corner of the windows is adorned with a small column. Two stringcourses decorated with small opposing triangles run around the apse. One runs at the height of the capitals' abacuses, the other highlights the base of the windows. In the nave and the south chapel, there are funerary urns from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries with coats of arms, bearing the arms of the Beaumont family and the Marquis de Monconseil, Lord of Rioux and Tesson. There once existed a crypt beneath the church. It was the object of special veneration, giving rise to an annual pilgrimage to Saint Venant (Abbot of Tours in the 5th century), venerated as a healer of the crippled. Miraculous cures were performed there. Following disturbances, this crypt was reportedly walled up around 1787. Legend has it that a considerable number of crutches were suspended from the ceiling. Excavations carried out in 1939 led to the discovery beneath the south chapel of an ossuary extensively remodeled in the 16th century, but there is no evidence that this ossuary was the pilgrimage crypt. The Notre-Dame de Rioux church has been listed as a historic monument since May 22, 1903.

Parish church dedicated to Saint Lawrence, built in the 12th century. It opens with a semicircular doorway with three archivolts resting on sculpted capitals that have lost their columns. The doorway was narrowed by two jambs and an archivolt with prismatic moldings from the 15th or 16th century. The corners of the facade are each buttressed by a group of three large engaged columns, surmounted from the first entablature by five smaller columns bearing capitals decorated with vegetal motifs. Above the first entablature is a row of seven ogival openings, the columns of which have disappeared. A pediment with two ramps from the 17th century. Its facade is very interesting. A deep and vast portal with four arches occupies the entire ground floor. The archivolts are decorated with geometric motifs. On the first floor, a beautiful Romanesque arcading unfolds its seven arches supported by slender columns. A blunt gable pierced by a semicircular window and crossed by a cornice supported by modifications completes it. The square bell tower is placed along the north wall. It is adorned, between the first and second entablatures, on the west and north faces, with three arcading. Above the second entablature, it takes an octagonal shape supported by a sloped section. Amputated of its upper part, it has retained from the 12th century only its base, its square first floor with false semicircular windows, and its staircase tower is also square. The octagonal second floor, with its pointed roof, was rebuilt in the 17th century. The nave has three bays separated by strong half-engaged columns, but only the left wall survives from the original building. It is pierced by three undecorated Romanesque splayed windows; the semicircular vault is made of lightweight materials. A few Romanesque arches frame the false square, which, through a wide bay on the left, connects to the base of the bell tower. This space, covered by an octagonal dome on squinches, forms a porch. The apse with a straight wall, vaulted like the preceding bay and the nave, is lit by three modern bare windows. To the left, a slightly broken bay opens onto a rectangular chapel that follows the porch located under the bell tower. This chapel, also with a flat chevet, is lit by an axial window, unsculpted on the interior but beautifully decorated on the exterior. The church of Saint-Simon de Pellouaille suffered severe attacks during the Wars of Religion, attacks attested by traces of fire still visible at the base of the bell tower. In the 16th century, it lost its south wall, its apse, and the crown of its bell tower. In the nave, one can see a well-made painting and a curious stone font. Near the south wall, eight ancient burials were discovered at the beginning of the present century. The church was listed as a Historic Monument on September 19, 1923.

The Château de la Garde was built around 1606-1610.

Certain foundations of small elongated freestones bear witness to a building from the end of the 11th century or the beginning of the 12th century. The nave was taken over in the second half of the 12th century and reinforced by arcades. If the base of the bell tower is characteristic of Romanesque architecture, its upper part bears the mark of the first Gothic age. The octagonal stone spire crowns a bell chamber based on a similar plan, the sides featuring alternating single bays and twin bays. Finally, the north wall and the facade were redone in the 19th century, the first bay of the nave having been shortened in order to widen the road passing in front of the church41. Like the majority of churches in the region, the Saint-Pierre de Gémozac church is based on a plan in the shape of a Latin cross. It consists of a single nave with four bays covered with a pointed barrel vault, which was completely redone in the 16th century. Inside, arcades respond to the buttresses and serve to reinforce the structure of the building. As in some Romanesque churches in the region, the transepts are covered with cupolas. However, if the north brace has a dome on squinches, the south brace has the particularity of having a dome on pendentives. The two arms of the transept are extended by apsidioles: the oldest (12th century), that of the south transept, forms a vaulted hemicycle; the most recent is a rectangular chapel covered with ribbed vaults. A narrow arcade opens onto the first bay of the choir. This forms a set of two spans. The first is covered with quadripartite warheads, while the second is completed by liernes. The flat apse (13th century), pierced with a triplet, testifies to the Cistercian influence on the architecture of the time. The church of Saint-Pierre de Gémozac is part of the tourist inventory of the most beautiful churches of Saintonge and is often cited among the religious buildings worthy of a visit. In certain aspects, this church is indeed one of the beautiful Romanesque churches of the Saintonge type, among which are still the remarkable churches of Rétaud, Rioux or even Thaims, all located in its canton.

The Château de La Salle certainly originated from the stronghold of Ozignac, which gave its name to the current hamlet of Louzignac, located near the castle. Located in the middle of a vast plain, the Château de La Salle is a classic building, sober, rigorous and of great coherence, which seems to have been erected in one go. Built on a north-east-south-west axis, it is accompanied, to the south-east, by a vast lateral courtyard lined with outbuildings, to which formerly corresponded, to the north-west, a tall forest which sheltered it from the winds. dominant. The set was preceded by a long straight avenue lined with trees whose layout is barely discernible today, but which is revealed by the first cadastral plan of Gémozac. It led to the forecourt which was further punctuated by two identical pavilions covered with tiles. Only the corner one remains. That of the north corner, although protected in 1990 as historical monuments, disappeared after being damaged by a fire. The castle itself is built in the axis of the forecourt, on a rectangular embankment surrounded on all sides by ditches cut in the rock, which allowed the extraction of part of the building materials. It is accessible by crossing an axial bridge with two arches. The ditches are protected by square section balusters, except in the northern part, where they have disappeared. Composed of a ground floor and a first floor, the residence of the lords of La Salle includes, on the arrival side, a main building at the back of the courtyard, framed by two symmetrical side wings. Of the same height, these three bodies of buildings are covered with a roof topped with Roman tiles, except on the two small sections placed on the side of the forecourt, where the flat tiles were used. To the south-west, on the side of the old parterres, the castle develops a more generously lit facade. Before certain openings were blocked, it had eleven bays, regularly organized from the axial bay which is marked by an elegant bridge-perron with three arches spanning the moat. Each of the two corners is marked by a fore body with three bays arranged in the extension of the side wings of the facade overlooking the forecourt (see the aerial view). The south-east side wing contains the old kitchen which is still covered with a semi-circular vault.

A small town in the Charente Maritime region. There are a number of historical monuments, such as the castle, the castle and several churches.