Neither big nor small, Angoulême is the only really average town that can boast of hosting not one but two major festivals: the International Comics Festival in January, which has just celebrated its 50th anniversary, and, at the end of August , the Francophone Film Festival, founded in 2008. The rest of the year, the homeland of Lucien de Rubempré, Balzac’s hero, is a charming city with more than one hidden treasure.
Jour 1
9:30 a.m. Boule, Bill and the others
Departure is at the highest point of the city, rue de l’Arsenal, at the intersection of rue Hergé (1). The route of the painted walls is the best way to discover the heart of Angoulême, its old streets traced in the Middle Ages and its undisputed title of world capital of the 9e art. The frescoes are signed by winners of the Grand Prix of the Angoulême festival. From Franquin’s Gaston Lagaffe to the duo Boule and Bill de Roba, a journey is emerging along which street art artists also express themselves. The restaurants, shops and bars are almost all concentrated in about ten streets between the halls – to be discovered on weekends in full effervescence –, the town hall and the cathedral.
11:30 a.m. Town Hall at all costs!
Visit a town hall, really? In Angoulême, there are two reasons to do so. The first is the history of the site, which was the castle of the counts of Angoulême. From the top of the old keep (2), the 360-degree perspective on the city allows you to understand how Angoulême was built over time. Second reason, the spectacular salon d’honneur, where the Second Empire decor imagined by Paul Abadie during the transformation of the castle into a town hall, between 1858 and 1869, has remained intact. Fireplace and colossal chandeliers, trompe-l’oeil ceiling, black and red woodwork, no wonder that filmmaker Wes Anderson shot several scenes of his French Dispatch, in 2018, which gave the city Hollywood notoriety.
2:30 p.m. On the quays
The bridge is called Hugo Pratt (3), and a statue of Corto Maltese, frank gaze directed towards the sea, occupies its center. It allows to pass from one bank to the other of the Charente at the level of the Museum of the comic strip. Going from the paper industry – a story completed in the 1970s – to trades and image schools, the district has remained both lively and very green, sometimes with an impression of wild nature in the middle of the city. The banks of the river can also be borrowed, right bank, where one can push to the pretty Saint Cybard church which gives its name to the district. This is also where the Flow Vélo passes, a route of nearly 300 km along the Charente, from Périgord to the Atlantic, which ends on the island of Aix.
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