The Town
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Saintes

The abbey church, the Abbaye-aux-Dames (April–Sept 10am–12.30pm & 2–7pm; Oct–Mar Wed & Sat 10am–12.30pm & 2–7pm, Tues, Thurs, Fri & Sun 2–6pm, closed Mon; €3), is as quirky as Notre-Dame in Poitiers. It stands back from the street on rue St-Pallais, in a sandy courtyard behind the smaller Romanesque church of St-Pallais. An elaborately sculpted doorway conceals the plain, domed interior. Its rarest feature is the eleventh-century tower, by turns square, octagonal and lantern-shaped, flanked with pinnacles and capped with the Poitou pine cone.

From here rue Arc-de-Triomphe brings you out on the riverbank beside an imposing Roman arch – the Arc de Germanicus – which originally stood on the bridge until 1843 when it was demolished to make way for the modern crossing, and rebuilt here. The arch was dedicated to the emperor Tiberius, his son Drusus and nephew Germanicus in 19 AD. In a stone building next door is an archeological museum (Tues–Sat 10am–noon & 2–6pm, Sun 2–6pm; Oct–April, Mon–Sat until 5.30pm; €1.52), with a great many more Roman bits and pieces strewn about, mostly rescued from the fifth-century city walls into which they had been incorporated. This whole area comes alive on the first Monday of every month when a sprawling market extends from the abbey right through here and up most of avenue Gambetta.

A footbridge crosses from the archeological museum to the covered market on the west bank of the river and place du Marché at the foot of the rather uninspiring Cathédrale de St-Pierre, which began life as a Romanesque church but was significantly altered in the aftermath of damage inflicted during the Wars of Religion, when Saintes was a Huguenot stronghold. Its enormous, heavily buttressed tower, capped by a hat-like dome instead of the intended spire, is the town's chief landmark. In front, the lime trees of place du Synode stretch away to the municipal buildings, while up to the right are the old quarter and the Hôtel Martineau library in the rue des Jacobins, with an exquisite central courtyard full of trees and shrubs. North of the cathedral, an early seventeenth-century mansion on rue Victor-Hugo houses the Musée Présidial (Tues–Sat 10am–noon & 2–6pm, Sun 2–6pm; Oct–April, Mon–Sat until 5.30pm; €1.52), containing a collection of local pottery and some unexciting paintings.

Saintes' Roman heritage is best seen at Les Arènes (April–Oct, Tues–Sun 9am–7pm; Nov–Mar 10am–12.30pm & 2–4.30pm; €1), an amphitheatre whose ruins lie at the head of a leafy little valley reached by a footpath which begins by 54 cours Reversaux. The amphitheatre was dug into the end of the valley in around 40 AD, making it one of the oldest surviving examples in France. Although most of the seats are now grassed over, it's still an evocative spot.

On the way back from the amphitheatre, it's no extra trouble to take in the eleventh-century church of St-Eutrope (9am–7pm; free). The upper church, which lost its nave in 1803, has some brilliant capital-carving in the old choir, best seen from the gallery. But it's the crypt – entered from the street – which is most atmospheric and primitive: here massive pillars carved with stylized vegetation support the vaulting in semi-darkness, and there's a huge old font and the third-century tomb of Saintes' first bishop, Eutropius himself.