A day in Chauvigny
Visiting Chauvigny, and eating
People come to Chauvigny for the medieval city, the birds of prey show or the vélorail. What nobody works out before arriving is when to eat, and where. Here is what you need to plan the day.
How long each one takes
- Vélorail, long ride
- 2 hours there and back over 17 km, plus the 30 minutes you must be there before departure. Count 2 h 30.
- Vélorail, short ride
- 1 h 15 there and back over 8 km, same quarter of an hour early. Count 1 h 45.
- The birds of prey show
- 45 minutes to an hour going round, as long again for the show itself. Count two hours on site.
- The medieval city, guided
- 1 h 30, leaving from the tourist office.
- The medieval city, on your own
- The streets belong to everyone: an hour to walk it, two if you stop along the way.
On our side, the kitchen serves from 12 to 2 and from 6 to 9.30, Tuesday to Saturday. In between, the bar stays open. Count backwards from those and the day falls into place on its own.
All of it is walkable. From our door, the tourist office is 370 metres away, the entrance to the birds of prey 410, the vélorail departure 660 - and that one is in the lower town like us, not up on the rock. Chauvigny is 23 kilometres from Poitiers: the day works perfectly well from the city, or from the Futuroscope.
The medieval city
The upper town sits on a rocky spur 350 metres long, caught between the valley of the Vienne and that of the Talbat. It was a defensive site long before it was a postcard: perched up there, these castles locked the Poitiers-Lyon road at the eastern edge of the county of Poitou.
There are five of them on that single spur - a group you will not find anywhere else in Europe. The bishops' castle, also called the baronial castle, where the lords of Chauvigny lived; those of Montléon, Harcourt and Gouzon; and the tower of Flins. The lordship belonged to the bishops of Poitiers, and stayed theirs until the Revolution. Few towns in France keep that many ruins and remains of the Middle Ages in the heart of one quarter, and that is what brings people here.
At the end of the street stands the collegiate church of Saint-Pierre, a masterpiece of Romanesque art built during the 12th century. Its carved capitals are what people travel to see: religious scenes, monsters and grimacing faces, and the ones in the choir signed by a certain Gofridus - one of the few Romanesque sculptors to have left his name. Look for the Adoration of the Magi, and the figure known as the dancer. Entry is free.
You can walk up on your own, whenever you like: the streets of the upper town never close. To make sense of what you are looking at, the guided tour runs 1 h 30 and leaves from the tourist office, 5 rue Saint-Pierre.
The climb from the lower town is on foot, and it is a climb: wear something sensible, and plan to catch your breath at the top.
The birds of prey
The show is given in the amphitheatre of the bishops' castle, so inside the medieval city itself: the two visits follow one another without going back to the car, which is the good move of the day. Eagles, vultures and parrots flying free above the ramparts - children remember it for years.
Count two hours in all, aviaries included. The season runs from spring to the end of September and the show times change from week to week, so check on their site for the day you are coming.
The vélorail
A vélorail is a pedal-powered trolley on a disused railway - here they are cyclo-draisines, half bike, half railcar, running along the Vienne. The long ride covers 17.4 km in 2 hours and crosses the river; it strings together viaducts, bridges and footbridges through woods, fields and meadows, with a view of the medieval city you get nowhere else. The short ride is 8 km in 1 h 15. Two people minimum to pedal, five to a trolley: it is the family outing of the town, and the one where children pedal harder than you do.
It is a ride through open country as much as an activity: you hear the river, you startle a heron, and nobody looks at a phone for two hours. The season runs from April to mid-November, wider than the birds of prey, and it is in July and August that you should book earliest. It leaves from 10 rue de la Folie, in the lower town, a few hundred metres from our door.
The catch is the 30 minutes you have to be there before departure, which everyone discovers on arrival. A morning long ride therefore frees you around noon - easy enough to come down and have lunch. A late departure brings you back after our kitchen has closed: eat before you go. Times and prices are on their site.
Eating around all that
We are in the lower town, 2 rue du petit pont, at the foot of the climb. The car park is a step away and it is free: leave the car, do the day on foot, pick it up in the evening without having driven round in circles.
At lunch there is one set menu - starter, main, dessert - decided by the morning market and served briskly, because we know your afternoon is spoken for. In the evening the kitchen turns to sharing plates: you pick, you order more, nobody hurries you. Between the two the bar stays open, which is worth knowing after two hours of pedalling.
Everything can be taken away too, midday and evening. Call in the morning, we pack it, you collect it on the way back to the car.
Can you eat in the upper town?
Yes, and we may as well say it plainly: there are several good addresses up there, a stone's throw from the collegiate church. If your idea is lunch among the ramparts without coming back down, they are better placed than we are.
We are at the bottom. What we have is free parking a step away, where the upper town is pedestrian and narrow, a terrace on the street, and being open between services when everyone else has shut. Your day, your call.
Saturday is another day
The Chauvigny market takes over the town on Saturday morning, one of the biggest in the department. We open at 8 that day: breakfast is €9 - hot drink, pastry, bread and jam, fruit juice - inside or on the terrace while the stalls go up. We tell that whole morning on our home page.
And on Saturday there is no lunch menu: the kitchen switches to tapas from 11. You pick between errands, you leave, you come back. It is our best day of the week, and the one where a phone call ahead is wise if you are several.
And also, if you stay
Chauvigny is not only its three big visits. The Gouzon keep, built in the 12th and 13th centuries, is climbed today by a glass lift designed by Sylvain Dubuisson: contemporary architecture planted inside a medieval ruin. At the top, a panoramic terrace opens onto the whole citadel and the valley of the Vienne - that is where the town makes sense at a glance. It houses the Espace d'Archéologie Industrielle, the museum telling the story of the two industries born in this country, stone and porcelain - a history you would never guess from the ramparts.
The heritage service also opens the museum of popular traditions - reconstructed 19th-century interiors, costumes and headwear, Gallo-Roman and medieval finds - the church of Saint-Pierre-les-Églises and its frescoes, the Micro-Folie, and candlelit tours when the nights draw in. Two museums and a handful of monuments: enough to discover the town over two days rather than one.
Enough for a whole weekend - and, honestly, enough to come back for. We will keep you a table whenever you like: a phone call is all it takes.
