Verteuil-sur-Charente

On our last full day in the Charente département — of which Angoulême is the biggest city and la Charente is the river that runs through it — we drove north about 25 miles to see the village called Verteuil-sur-Charente. The gîte owner recommended it as a very pretty village with an impressive château. He was right. He said he had spent many years there in his younger days. He also said that a lot of British people live there these days. Even the mayor is an Englishman. The population is about 600.

The Michelin Green guidebook describes Verteuil [vehr-TUH-yuh] as "a village squeezed in between a cliff and a river." It has a very pretty center and felt very méridional When we saw on a hot sunny day, it felt a little like a village in Provence. The château de Verteuil stands on a promontory high above the village and the river. It was owned for a thousand years by the La Rochefoucauld family and was sold recently. I don't know if it is open to the public. It didn't seem to be when we were there last week.

When we arrived at Verteuil, we parked the car near the village church and walked with the dog for about an hour. I didn't take any photos, but Walt did. He'll be posting them over the next days and weeks. Meanwhile, there are a lot of photos of Verteuil sights on this web site. Our trip was winding down when we were there and we returned to the gîte to spend the afternoon on its nice covered patio having lunch and starting to get ready to drive back to Saint-Aignan the next morning.

P.S. Look at this house for sale in Verteuil. Asking price: 170K euros. Three bedrooms, 2½ bathrooms...