page_title: Saintes, Charente-Maritime
section_title: Left bank (Rive gauche)
hierarchical_section_title: Saintes, Charente-Maritime / Geography / Districts / Left bank (Rive gauche)
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: L'hôtel des Postes à Saintes
context_page_description: Saintes is a commune and historic town in western France, in the Charente-Maritime department of which it is a sub-prefecture, in Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Its inhabitants are called Saintaises and Saintais. Saintes is the second-largest city in Charente-Maritime, with 26,470 inhabitants in 2008. The city's immediate surroundings form the second-most populous metropolitan area in the department, with 56,598 inhabitants. While a majority of the surrounding landscape consists of fertile, productive fields, a significant minority of the region remains forested; its natural state.
  In Roman times, Saintes was known as Mediolanum Santonum, and during much of its history, the name of the city was spelled Xaintes and Xainctes.
  Primarily built on the left bank of the Charente, Saintes became the first Roman capital of Aquitaine, and later, the capital of the province of Saintonge under the Ancien Régime. Following the French Revolution it briefly became the prefecture of the department during the territorial reorganization of 1790, until La Rochelle took its place in 1810. Even though it was but a subprefecture, Saintes was allowed to remain the judicial center of the department.
context_section_description: The neighborhood of Saint-Pierre lies between the hill of the Capitole and the river Charente. It possesses a significant number of historic monuments justifying its forming of the core of a conservation area that spans over 65 hectares (0.25 sq mi). Built around the cathedral Saint-Pierre, the place du marché and the place du Synode, it is crossed by pedestrian alleys around which can be found numerous medieval, renaissance and classic buildings.
  Almost immediately west lies the neighbourhood of Saint-Eutrope, that has developed over the centuries around a rocky elevation bounded by two small valleys at right angles to the river. Dominated by the Saint-Eutrope basilica, it also contains the remains of a Clunian priory and several hillside houses. Little valleys lead to the vallon des Arènes (meaning arenas vale) below, where a Roman amphiteatre survives, in a park named "Parc des Arènes".
  The cours Reverseaux and cours des Apôtres de la liberté separate Saint-Eutrope (and its hill) in the west from the faubourg Berthonnière. These partly separate the hill of the Capitole to the north. Once outside-of-the-walls, the faubourg included some hostelries and inns for pilgrims. The streets of the faubourg converge toward the place Saint-Louis, the place de l'Aubarrée and the place Blair, dominated by a column of Liberty (in France popularised as fictional Marianne at the time) erected during the Revolution. The square Goulebenéze stands between the place Blair and the river.
  The neighbourhoods of les Boiffiers and Bellevue are separated from the rest of the city by the avenue de Saintonge; they consist mainly in low-rent housing (HLM) and suburban housing standing on a plateau bounded by the Charente. Bellevue has 1,560 inhabitants and spans 17 hectares (42 acres); it is listed as a zone urbaine sensible (ZUS).
  La Recouvrance, in a triangle formed by the cours du maréchal Leclerc, the cours Genet and the rocade ouest (bypass), contains a lycée, the former seminary, the Yvon Chevalier stadium and a shopping mall. The water tower of Recouvrance is decorated with frescoes by contemporary artist Michel Genty.
  The north of the urban area, the Saint-Vivien neighborhood has an old faubourg (exurb) inhabited since antiquity where the thermes de Saint-Saloine, ancient Roman baths are found.
caption: The Post Office on the left bank.
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