Attractions and Places To See around Cercoux - Top 4

From the Dolmen de la Pierre Folle, the crazy stone, an impressive megalithic site in the municipality of Montguyon. It is located on a hill covered with vineyards in the Pineau des Charentes region.

The 21.5-kilometre greenway linking Châteauneuf-sur-Charente to Saint-Mariens Saint Yzan offers a nature getaway through the picturesque landscapes of Charente. This route, perfectly designed for cyclists, winds between vineyards, forests and fields

https://www.abbatialedeguitres.fr The church of Guîtres is an abbey church; it is therefore the church of an abbey of monks (Benedictine). This abbey, of which only a few traces remain, is said to have been built by Grimoard and Raymond de Fronsac, sons of Hermengarde de Rochechouard, towards the end of the 11th century (between 1060 and 1080). The abbey of Guîtres was therefore dependent on that of Fronsac. The Romanesque style, which dominates the eastern part of the church, is proof that it was shortly after the year 1000 that it began to rise to the picturesque height where we can admire it today. In the Isle Valley, on a hillside where there were three fountains famous even at the time of the Romans (from which the name Guîtres is said to have originated), the Benedictines from Fleury-sur-Loire and Cluny laid the first stone of their abbey on the site of a chapel burned by the Normans. Their work lasted until the 15th century.

The Notre-Dame church in Marcenais is the only vestige of a Templar commandery established at the end of the 12th century. There is no visible trace of the commandery except the chapel. It was fortified in the 16th century by the Hospitallers by adding watchtowers and in the 18th century by raising the walls to create a refuge above the vault, which greatly changed its appearance and gave it a certain originality. (...) The commanderies of the South-West were mainly agricultural establishments and were presented in the form of a quadrilateral including the residence of the commander, the dwelling for the brothers with the refectories, the barns, the stables, the cellars, the workshops, a pond for fish farming, the unmissable medieval garden…, enclosed to the south by the chapel dedicated to Notre Dame. Of this ensemble, only the chapel remains today, which became the parish church at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The last traces of a "castle" attached to the north wall of the church go back to 1626 when "one could still see the place where the prisons were in the castle and old strong walls and good cut stones and a small garden surrounded by ditches with a small fountain inside…”.

Moulin de Charlot on the Saye. Family brewery in the heart of the forest along the river. It is open from May to September but the site is accessible all year round, including picnic tables.