Brantome

Brantome sits on an island made by a loop of the Dronne and a cut channel, joined to the banks by bridges including an elbow-shaped one of the sixteenth century, which is why it gets called the Venice of Perigord. The Benedictine abbey was founded in the eighth century, and the monks used the cliff behind it: caves cut into the rock served as store, kitchen, dovecote and chapel, and one carries a large relief of the Last Judgement and a crucifixion carved into the wall, probably in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The bell tower on the rock above the abbey is eleventh century and among the oldest in France.

History

The town grew on an island in a loop of the Dronne beside the Benedictine abbey founded in 769 by Charlemagne, who by legend gave it relics of Saint Sicaire, one of the Holy Innocents, which drew pilgrims; Vikings coming up the rivers laid it waste in 848 and 857, and it was rebuilt late in the 10th century and again in 1465 and 1480, after the Hundred Years' War. Its Romanesque bell tower contends for the title of oldest in France. Pierre de Mareuil, abbot from 1538, built the angled bridge, the Pont Coudé, to link his Renaissance lodging with its garden across the river, and his nephew Pierre de Bourdeille, the soldier and writer known as Brantôme, abbot from 1558 to 1614, twice saved the abbey and town from Coligny's Huguenot army in 1569. At the Revolution the abbey was sold as national property, its last seven monks pensioned off and its library dispersed (Wikipedia, Brantôme, Dordogne).

What's there

• The cliff caves - monastic rooms cut into the rock with a carved Last Judgement.
• The island town - a centre enclosed by the Dronne and a cut channel.
• The elbow bridge - a sixteenth-century bridge turning a right angle.
• The rock bell tower - an eleventh-century tower standing on the cliff.

When to go

April to October; the abbey and caves reduce hours in winter. Riverside walks and canoe hire run in summer. The Friday market fills the centre.

Practical notes

The caves are damp and the carvings are worn and hard to read in poor light. The town is small and busy with day visitors in summer. Parking is outside the island.

Nearby

Perigueux lies south; Bourdeilles is downstream.