Poitiers

Poitiers is a university city on the river Clain in west-central France. It is a commune, the capital of the Vienne department, part of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of France, and the historical center of Poitou Province. In 2022, the commune of Poitiers had a population of 89,427. Also in 2022, its conurbation had 133,833 inhabitants and its functional area 281,452 inhabitants. It is a city of art and history, still known popularly as the "Ville aux cent clochers" ("City of a hundred bell towers"). With more than 30,000 students, Poitiers has been a major university town since the creation of its university in 1431, having hosted world-renowned figures and thinkers such as René Descartes, Joachim du Bellay and François Rabelais, among others. The plaza of the town is picturesque; its streets including predominantly preserved historical architecture and half-timbered houses, especially religious edifices, commonly from the Romanesque period. The latter includes notably the 4th century baptistery of Saint-Jean (Baptistère Saint-Jean), the 7th century Merovingian underground chapel of the Hypogeum of the Dunes (L'Hypogée des Dunes), the Church of Notre-Dame-la-Grande (12th century), the Church of Saint-Porchaire (12th century) or Poitiers Cathedral (end of the 12th century) as well as the Palace of Poitiers, until recently a courthouse (12th century), the former palace of the Counts of Poitou, Dukes of Aquitaine, where the Dowager Queen of France and England Eleanor of Aquitaine held her "Court of Love". The city's pedigree is associated with two major battles that took place in the area. The first, in 732, also known as the Battle of Tours (to avoid inevitable confusion with the second), saw the defending Frankish warhost commanded by Charles Martel defeat the belligerent expeditionary army of the Umayyad Caliphate led by Muslim general Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi. The second battle, in 1356, a lionized military...