The commune is accessible via exit number 7 titled "Vayres et Izon" (Vayres and Izon) and exit number 8 titled "Vayres, Arveyres, Saint-Germain-du-Puch et Libourne" (Vayres, Arveyres, Saint-Germain-du-Puch and Libourne) on the A89 autoroute.
The Château de Vayres (Vayres Castle) was remodeled by the 16th-century French engineer Louis de Foix, deceased 1611.[7]
Aerial view of the chateau
The castle was sold in 1583 by King Henry IV of Navarre largely ruined, to Ogier de Gourgue, in charge of the treasury of Guyenne, a friend of philosopher and political thinker Michel de Montaigne. Ogier de Gourge commissioned a well-known architect, Louis de Foix, who was building the Cordouan lighthouse and had worked for a few years for the king of Spain Philip II.
History
Vayres has been inhabited since antiquity. It was located on the Roman road that connected Burdigala, now Bordeaux to Vesunna, now Périgueux. At the time it was a camp and market but gradually developed due to its location on a rocky outcrop overlooking the confluence between the Gestas and the Dordogne on which the castle was built. Vayres was a Barony, then a Marquisat where the Seigneurs were rich and powerful. The first written records of the Seigneurs of Vayres were the statements of various donations (Frenchs: états de donations diverses), written between 1060 and 1086. In the 11th century the Seigneurs from the Gombaud family owned Vayres and Lesparre-Médoc. An archbishop of Bordeaux also had this name at the end of the 10th century. During the French Revolution the parish of Saint-Jean de Vayres became the commune of Vayres.[8]
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