Visitors to Charentes will be bowled over, but it’s best to leave the brandy tasting until after lunch, as I discovered on a visit to Angouleme, Cognac and La Rochelle in France’s Nouvelle-Aquitaine region
“Roll up, roll up – welcome to the town where Rizla cigarette papers were invented,” the road signs on the outskirts of Angouleme could read, but don’t. Perched on a plateau overlooking a bend in the Charente river, 130km north-east of Bordeaux (35 minutes from there by high-speed train), the town has other, less dubious claims to fame.
Its Circuit des Remparts classic cars rally, held every third weekend in September, was first staged in 1939 and attracts 65,000 enthusiasts from all over Europe; and each January, 200,000 fans attend the international comics festival, which has been a crowd-puller since 1974 – no surprise, given that one in four books bought in France is a bande-dessinée (graphic novel).
Thirty-odd permanent murals, some of them five storeys high, of superheroes, cartoon-strip characters and scenes from history provide a walking trail for fans of street art, guided by a free app. Many of them took weeks to complete, but on a bin shed door, a Banksy-style stencilled depiction of the Russian president wearing bright red lipstick was probably sprayed in a few seconds. The message beneath the image is the ultimate French insult – VLADIMIR PUTAIN.
In the treasury of the 12th-century Saint Pierre Cathedral, an extraordinary installation of coloured Murano glass by contemporary French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel has me mesmerised; so much so, it takes a combination of the curator jangling her keys and a gastric grumbling from my midriff to remind me the one-hour viewing is over and Sunday lunch awaits.
The 19th-century Marche des Halles is the culinary and social heart of the town, and amid the stalls offering fresh local produce are several street food-style bars with seating areas. At busy periods, affect a bad back and a sympathetic diner might slide along a bench and let you in – it works everywhere for me.
In Place New York, a plaque tells visitors that in 1524, Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano sailed into the Hudson during a voyage of discovery bankrolled by King Francis I, the former Count of Angouleme. A 16th-century portrait by Jean Clouet shows the French monarch, who was a patron of Leonardo da Vinci, had the head off Henry VIII – a fella who knew a thing or two about heads off.
The name Verrazzano gave to the land flanking the Hudson didn’t stick, or US musician Gerard Kenny’s 1979 hit would have been called Nouvelle-Angouleme, Nouvelle-Angouleme (So Good They Named It Twice), which isn’t so easy to sing.
Wes Anderson’s whimsical 2021 movie The French Dispatch, which pays homage to The New Yorker magazine, was filmed in Angouleme and helped tourist numbers bounce back last year to pre-pandemic levels. For that reason, locals have forgiven the director’s little joke in renaming their town Ennui-sur-Blasé (Boredom-on-Apathy) on screen.
It helped, too, that Saoirse Ronan, who appears as a curly-wigged showgirl, sings France’s favourite lullaby, A La Claire Fontaine, to the kidnapped young son of the police chief. During the film’s premiere in Cannes, audience members who knew the words let out a nostalgic sigh and sang along.
In the four-star Le Saint Gelais hotel, staff remember the Hollywood stars who stayed there as tres charmant – and big tippers – and autographed photos of Frances McDormand, Adrian Brody, Benicio del Toro, Tilda Swinton and Willem Dafoe, among others, adorn the walls.
Bill Murray, who plays Dispatch editor Arthur Howitzer Jr and was required to be in Angouleme for only one day of filming, was so taken with the town that he remained for a week, frequenting its cafes and restaurants and playing golf.
Formerly a priory, the 12-room Saint Gelais is a cosy first-night layover on my tour of the Charentes departments of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region that proceeds to Cognac before ending in La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast.
Richard Hennessy, from County Cork, established his eponymous liquor-making business in Cognac in 1765 after serving with the Irish Brigade of Louis XV’s army, and among the brand’s famous fans was James Bond. In the 1969 film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 007 (George Lazenby) survives a bobsleigh crash shaken, not stirred, and tells a playful St Bernard dog to stop licking him and “go and get the brandy – five-star Hennessy, of course”.
Ninety-five per cent of all the brandy produced in and around Cognac is exported. Global sales leader Hennessy is especially popular among African Americans, thanks largely to its being the spirit of choice of Black hip hop artists and rappers, who have referenced it in nearly 1,000 songs. Cardi B, who has a sister named Hennessy, mentions the drink in her ‘nasty’ 2020 hit WAP. As Ms B has 154 million followers on Instagram, it’s a dream endorsement.
A tour of Hennessy’s riverside distillery and cellars, where 350,000 barrels are stored, is best left until after lunch as they pour with abandon during the tasting session. When you sell 70 million bottles a year, you can afford to be generous with the measures.
It’s a mere hop, skip and a slight stagger from the Hennessy tasting lounge to the quay where the sightseeing boat La Demoiselle awaits passengers for a lazy 90 minutes on the water. Although early October, it’s sunglasses and T-shirts weather as a low-flying kingfisher whizzes past, its iridescent blue and orange plumage like petrol in a puddle. Visitors can see another colourful spectacle throughout July when fields full of sunflowers stretch from both banks of the river to the horizon.
A cabin cruiser like those for hire on Lough Erne and the Shannon glides by with a French family enjoying a mid-afternoon snack on deck. Cognac is one of three bases on the Charente where no-experience-needed captains and crews can board their boats for a weekend or longer on the 170 navigable kilometres from Angouleme to Rochefort, where the river meets the sea.
It’s on that sea a few hours later that I go for an evening cruise out of La Rochelle with skipper Bertrand de Rancourt on his 14-metre yacht Kelone and marvel at the most magnificent sunset I’ve ever seen. (One of my travelling companions was so impressed by the sight that as soon as he got home to Dublin, he booked flights to return with his partner the following weekend as a birthday treat.)
La Rochelle, where the Nazis built a U-boat base, has been no stranger to invasions, and was the last French city liberated by the Allies at the end of World War II. These days, the invaders are year-round tourists, plus the wealthy Parisians who own most of the multi-million-euro sea-view apartments to which they decamp each summer.
The main visitor attractions are the Saint Nicolas Tower, the Chain Tower and the Lantern Tower, which guard the entrance to the inner harbour and are together classified as a national monument.
As the name suggests, the 15th-century Lantern Tower was originally a lighthouse. From the 17th to 19th centuries it served as a prison, and the walls on all five floors are covered with graffiti, many examples left by Irish and English sailors and soldiers who were held there. They must have been the fittest – or most pooped – prisoners around, as they were forced to exercise by marching up and down the 158 internal steps several times a day.
Rumour has it that former Ireland rugby international Ronan O’Gara, the head coach of local Top 14 club La Rochelle, takes his players for secret training sessions on those same steps. That might explain why they’re one of the most physically imposing squads in the game, which helped them to back-to-back wins over Leinster in the 2022 and 2023 European Champions Cup finals.
The Marche Central provides all the charcuterie, cheese, fruit, bread and cheap but excellent local wine for a picnic on one of the city’s three beaches or those on nearby Ile de Re, where the O’Gara family live.
Many visitors hire bikes in La Rochelle and ride across the 3km-long road bridge to the island, which is 30km by 5km and mostly flat. Its 110km of safe and well-signposted cycle paths go past vineyards and salt pans, along the coast and through villages and small towns that are only a few kilometres apart, so you’re never far from a shop or a toilet.
Families with younger children prefer to use the shuttle buses that connect the city with the island communities, where bike-hire outlets abound. Another option, and great fun, is to board a shuttle boat to Ile de Re’s main harbour town, St-Martin-de Re – they leave from close to the three towers. Whichever way you get there, it’s an enjoyable day out that works up an appetite for dinner.
An evening stroll through the narrow streets of La Rochelle’s old town or along the yacht-lined quays where German jackboots once stomped offers opportunities galore to dine on a restaurant terrace. Most bars are open until well past midnight year round, so there’s no need to rush your meal to catch a late-night drink or two on the way back to your hotel.
I’ve never heard of The Famous Pub on the waterfront, so I give it a miss and drop in to La Calhutte, where they’ve never heard of last orders, in a lively little square just around the corner from where I’m staying. Heading there, I pass a bus shelter with the route numbers on coloured discs on the side. They look like lottery balls, so I take a quick photo and add them to my EuroMillions slip.
To date, my twice-weekly investment in those numbers has cost me nearly €250 and returned a grand total of zero. However, when they do come up, I’ll celebrate with a big cigar (no Rizla roll-ups for me) and a glass of brandy – five-star Hennessy, of course – and ask Ronan O’Gara if he knows of any multi-million-euro sea-view apartments for sale.
GET THERE
Ryanair (ryanair.com) flies from Dublin to Bordeaux and La Rochelle, while Aer Lingus (aerlingus.com) flies from Dublin to Bordeaux. If you aren’t driving, travel between Bordeaux, Cognac and La Rochelle by train (sncf.com)
STAY
I stayed in the 4-star Hotel Le Saint Gelais in Angouleme (hotel-saint-gelais-angouleme.com) and the 3-star Hotel Saint Nicolas in La Rochelle (hotel-saint-nicolas.com)
EAT
Angouleme: Les Sources de Fontbelle (sourcesdefontbelle.com), Marche des Halles (marche-halles.fr), La Cour (restaurant-lacour.com), Le Jardin des Arceaux, Hotel Mercure (restaurantsandbars.accor.com). Cognac: Le Bistro de Claude (bistro-de-claude.com). La Rochelle: La Yole de Chris (christophercoutanceau.com), L’Ardoise des Cloutiers (lardoise-des-cloutiers.fr)
THINGS TO DO
Hennessy distillery tour and tasting. See hennessy.com
Sunset cruise off La Rochelle. Three-hour private charter prices for one to 11 people range from €360 to €480 (with full complement of passengers, from €32.72 each). See kelone.fr
*I visited Charentes as a guest of angouleme-tourisme.com, atlantic-cognac.com, tourism-cognac.co.uk and holidays-la-rochelle.co.uk
Tom Sweeney Travel Writer 