Crazannes and Saint-Savinien: Puss in Boots' Castle and the Stone That Built Fort Boyard

Required Activities

• Work along the north front of Crazannes and pick out the flamboyant stone carving round its early 16th-century doors and windows, then find the machicolations under the sharp pepperpot roof of the round tower, and go into the 11th-century chapel and the 17th-century dovecote

• On the guided trail through the Crazannes quarries, find the hart's-tongue ferns growing on the shaded gorge walls where the stone was cut out, and in the dry ground above look for the man orchid and the bee orchid

• Walk the Charente at Saint-Savinien up to the Peu, the rock promontory the old town sits on above the disused Chail quarries, and look for the tree sparrows the town has put up boxes for

• In the village, go into the maison des Pierreux, the old Charentais house that tells the quarrymen's story, and find what tools they cut the blocks with