On one of the days when we stayed in La Rochelle we decided to visit two nearby cities - Saintes and Rochefort. We only had one day for both cities and to do the justice to both of them you need to spend there much more time than that!
The cities are very different, but both are absolutely lovely and are definitely worth the visit!
Let's go!
And, as usual, quoting Wikipedia:
Saintes (French: [sɛ̃t]) is a commune and historic town in western France, in the Charente-Maritime department of which it is a sub-prefecture, in Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Its inhabitants are called Saintaises and Saintais.[2] Saintes is the second-largest city in Charente-Maritime, with 26,470 inhabitants in 2008. The city's immediate surroundings form the second-most populous metropolitan area in the department, with 56,598 inhabitants. While a majority of the surrounding landscape consists of fertile, productive fields, a significant minority of the region remains forested, its natural state.
In Roman times, Saintes was known as Mediolanum Santonum. During much of its history, the name of the city was spelled Xaintes or Xainctes.
Primarily built on the left bank of the Charente River, Saintes became the first Roman capital of Aquitaine. Later it was designated as the capital of the province of Saintonge under the Ancien Régime. Following the French Revolution, it briefly became the prefecture of the department (then called Charente-Inférieure) during the territorial reorganization of 1790, until La Rochelle was designated and superseded it in 1810.[3] Although it only had the status of a subprefecture,[N 1] Saintes was allowed to remain the judicial center of the department. In the late 19th century, Saintes was chosen as the seat of the VIIIth arrondissement of the Chemins de Fer de l'État, railways, which enabled an era of economic and demographic growth.
Today, Saintes remains the economic heart of the center of the department, and it is an important transportation hub.[4] A few major industrial businesses operate (in electronics, rail repair, construction of hoists). The city's commerce and service sector is large, featuring the headquarters of Coop Atlantique, and administrative functions of state, courts, and legal services; banks, schools, and a hospital. Beyond this, property maintenance, retail, and tourism sectors provide large numbers of jobs.
Because of its noteworthy Gallo-Roman, medieval and classical heritage, Saintes is a tourist destination. It has been a member of the French Towns and Lands of Art and History since 1990.[5] It has several museums, a theater, cinemas, and organizes numerous festivals.[6] A European center of musical research and practice is in its Abbaye aux Dames.[7]
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Rochefort (/ˈroʊʃfɔːrt/), also known as Rochefort-sur-Mer (French pronunciation: [ʁɔʃfɔʁ syʁ mɛʁ]), is a commune in southwestern France, a port on the Charente estuary. It is a sub-prefecture of the Charente-Maritime department. In December 1665, Rochefort was chosen by Jean-Baptiste Colbert as a place of "refuge, defence and supply" for the French Navy. The Arsenal de Rochefort served as a naval base and dockyard until it closed in 1926.
In September 1757, Rochefort was the target of an ambitious British raid during the Seven Years' War.
Another infrastructure of early Rochefort from 1766 was its bagne, a high-security penal colony involving hard labour. Bagnes were then common fixtures in military harbors and naval bases, such as Toulon or Brest, because they provided free labor. During the Jacobin period of the French Revolution (1790-95), over 800 Roman Catholic priests and other clergy who refused to take the anti-Papal oath of the "Civil Constitution of the Clergy" were put aboard a fleet of prison ships in Rochefort harbour, where most died due to inhumane conditions.
Off Rochefort, from the island of Île-d'Aix where he had spent several days hoping to flee to America, Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered to Captain F. L. Maitland aboard HMS Bellerophon, on 17 July 1815, ending the "Hundred Days".
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Rochefort is a notable example of 17th-century "ville nouvelle" or new town, which means its design and building resulted from a political decree. The reason for building Rochefort was to a large extent that royal power could hardly depend on rebellious Protestant La Rochelle, which Cardinal Richelieu had to besiege a few decades earlier. Well into the 20th century, Rochefort remained primarily a garrison town. The tourist industry, which had long existed due to the town's spa, gained emphasis in the 1990s.
27 авг 2024
