La Vienne is one of the territorial entities, one of the hundred departments that France established during the French Revolution. It is in the center-west of France, within the Nouvelle Aquitaine region, whose capital, Bordeaux, is notably known for its wines. The capital of the Vienna is the city of Poitiers, where palaces, museums, churches and private houses have made their architecture one of its main attractions.
Walking through the alleys of Poitiers we can feel that all around us that charm of fairytale images is released. Narrow sidewalks, white shutters in large windows and, at the top of their row houses, smaller windows between thin slate slats that they give shape to cozy attics.
Notre Dame la Grande, Poitiers.
CAPITAL OF FABLE
Sitting down to have a coffee on a terrace in the Poitiers squares, we will continue to feel inside a fable decorated with beautiful ancestral facades. Sooner or later, we can go to the market next to the church of Notre-Dame-la-Grande, to buy bread, cheese or some delicatessen pastries made by local producers.
By day and by night, the city of Poitiers shows its beauty. Among all its heritage, the most visited are its Romanesque church of Notre-Dame-la-Great, its Gothic cathedral, dedicated to Saint Peter, and the building of the Baptistery of San Juan, which preserves an ancient octagonal baptismal pool, used until the 8th century for baptism by immersion.
Angles-Sur-l'Anglin.
ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CITIES IN FRANCE
Less than an hour northeast of Poitiers is Angles-Sur-l'Anglin, a small town that many regard as one of the most beautiful cities in France. If in the little streets and squares of Poitiers we have come to feel ourselves between the pages of a story, in Angles-Sur-l'Anglin, its picturesque facades and bucolic surroundings, the ruins of its castle and a walk along the river will seem fascinating.
And from Angles-Sur-l'Anglin, in about twenty minutes by car we reach the abbey of Saint Savin, which is another interesting proposal to visit in Vienne. The building is a wonder on the banks of the Gartempe River. Inside it conserves 700 square meters of Romanesque frescoes, inscribed since 1983 on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. tablet in hand, the history of this church and monastery is explained to us in stages, with 3D audiovisuals that add an incentive of surprise to the tour of the rooms of the historic place.
Montmorillon.
BETWEEN BOOKS AND ABBEYS
In good weather, the beauty of Saint Savin Abbey is further exploited because outdoor night shows are organized in its exteriors. On May 14, taking advantage of the European night of museums, there will be a guided tour followed by a harp concert. On July 28, the Night of the Abbeys will be celebrated, with a fireworks display. And in the garden of the abbey, on August 5 and 6 George Lucas film to be screened Star Wars. And on September 11, a day will be dedicated to yoga and meditation in those suggestive exteriors.
Another twenty minutes south of Saint Savin Abbey, another very original getaway is the one that takes us to Montmorillon, considered the city of writing and book trades. Its many bookstores, where you can buy copies of different genres, new and also second-hand, and the bookbinding, illustration and calligraphy workshops have made this town a very particular destination for lovers of literature. The entire municipality is a very bucolic enclave with stone bridges over the river Gartempe.
Cabins on the waters of a pond.
FLOATING VILLA
If we continue making the route to the south, in less than an hour we will arrive at a place that is worth keeping in mind on our walk through Vienne, especially when looking for accommodation. They are the cabins Village Flottant de Pressac, accommodations for the most part built with wood, on the banks, or on the waters of a pond. The beauty of the entire environment motivates a lot to fish, rent bicycles, walk along trails, or swim in an outdoor pool –in the summer season–. We can also relax immersing ourselves in water at 39 degrees, taking a Nordic bath With the view over meadows, under the sky.
Picking up the road towards Poitiers, a little less than an hour north of Pressac, we find the medieval village of Chauvigny, that had come to have three standing castles and two defensive towers. Again, fairytale streets.
Room for cultural and sporting events.
FUTURESCOPE
From Chauvigny we will be half an hour from the destination that is probably most heard of in the Vienne: Futuroscope, the park that was born from innovation. France had set out to enrich the attractiveness of the Vienne by encouraging technological invention, multimedia technology, and from this came this gateway to science and technological advance, the spectacle that this park is today that has always put the accent on the story about life, the planet and the trips on it and outside of it.
It was a pioneer and still stands out today in Europe for its large number of audiovisual projection rooms with IMAX technology, the maximum size and resolution of conventional images. Surprising travel experiences are thus lived, with the feeling of being in the place that is projected on the screen . Phenomena such as tornadoes, exits into space, free fall, energies and planetary ecosystems are made known to us. Night shows at Futuroscope on the water they make us feel that technology can do anything, and for a few hours, the imagination can rest, because what we see is beyond it.
Galactic gastronomy.
WHERE THE FUTURE IS WRITTEN
In the surroundings of the attractive and original park beats a kind of 'Hub of the future', which welcomes more than 200 companies. It is a true technopolis in which hundreds of researchers bring us closer to a progress marked by advances in technology. In this environment, it has recently been inaugurated the Futuroscope Sand, a room designed for cultural and sporting events, which already hosts concerts, film screenings and opera and dance performances.
And with access also from outside the Futuroscope park enclosure, this spring the Space Loop restaurant has been inaugurated (space loop), where the dishes we choose from touch screens at our table arrive after negotiating a long circuit of looping rails, as in roller coaster attraction.
Sleeping in the future.
Also out of the park, just opened the Station Cosmos, a hotel designed as an authentic galactic station. It has 76 rooms to sleep as we would in the cabin of a spaceship for total immersion. And the facilities have High Environmental Quality certificate.
To the capital of Vienne, Poitiers, which is 20 minutes from the Futuroscope, we can get there on the TGV from Paris in just over two hours. And new this season, the company Ryanair has inaugurated the direct line Barcelona-Poitiers, with two weekly flights, on Thursdays and Sundays. From different Spanish cities, you can get there by plane via Paris, Bordeaux and Nantes.