Angouleme is a town and commune in southwestern France, capital city of the Charente département.Angouleme is located 134 km or 83 miles of Bordeaux on the railway between Bordeaux and Poitiers.

FACTS AND FIGURES

• Population: 43,000
• Was taken by Clovis from the Visigoths in 507, and plundered by the Normans in the 9th century.
• The diocese comprises the départment of the Charente and has always been suffragan to the Archbishopric of Bordeaux
• Angouleme is a centre of the paper-making industry, with which the town has been connected since the 14th century

SIGHTS AND ATTRACTIONS

• The cathedral of St. Pierre, a church in the Byzantine-Romanesque style, dates from the 11th and 12th centuries
• The hôtel de ville, is a handsome modern structure, but preserves two towers of the chateau of the counts of Angouleme, on the site of which it is built
• Museums of paintings and archaeology