Page 393 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - France

Signs leading the way to the Atlantic coast in Aquitaine

POITOU AND
AQUITAINE

With flat, fertile land and an accessible coastline,
Poitou and Aquitaine were first inhabited more
than 20,000 years ago. During the Iron Age, Celtic
tribes grew immensely wealthy mining gold in
the hills of Limousin, which they then turned into
coins and beautiful ceremonial pieces. By the
1st century BC, Julius Caesar had transferred
these riches to Roman coffers, and began building
baths, arches and amphi theatres in Bordeaux and
Saintes. During the Middle Ages, the exquisitely
ornate cathedrals of Parthenay and Poitiers
sprang up as the landscape became criss-crossed
with pilgrim age routes, along which the devout
journeyed to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
In 1152, Eleanor of Aquitaine added this province
to England’s Continental territories when she
married Henry II; although Poitou was lost in 1259,
Aquitaine would remain under English rule until
1453, when it was annexed by France. Many towns
were destroyed during the Wars of Religion in the
16th century, but the region was largely spared by
the French Revolution. In 1870, when Paris seemed
under threat at the start of the Franco-Prussian
war, the French capital was tempo rary moved to
Bordeaux. History would repeat itself during World
War I and very briefly during the World War II,
when the government again relocated to Bordeaux
before Paris was sieged.
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