Every design for Angoulême

Angoulême is known around the world for comics: the Angoulême International Comics Festival carries its name far beyond the Charente, and dozens of animation and video game studios here produce half of France's animated output. It calls itself the City of the Image, and it earns the title.

Yet the feeling most people carry away is of height. The old town sits on a limestone spur above a loop of the Charente, which is why Angoulême is nicknamed the balcony of the south-west. Walking the ramparts, the river valley opens out below you, and the winding streets and little squares of old Angoulême fold back behind. The Musée du Papier recalls the paper industry that arrived in the sixteenth century.

For anyone who grew up here, the map is the shape of that river loop and the spur above it, the climb from L'Houmeau, once a busy river port, up to the plateau and home.