At the western confines of Burgundy, NEVERS
is a small provincial city on the confluence of the rivers Loire and
Nièvre. In France it is known for its nougatine candies and fine
porcelain, a hallmark since the seventeenth century, still produced in
just three workshops and sold in a few elegant, expensive shops (
faïenceries ) around town. Parts of the old town,
best viewed from the bridge over the Loire, date back to the twelfth
century and make for a relaxed stroll away from the busier town centre.
Not necessarily a destination in itself, Nevers makes, with its
open-air concert programme in summer and a few lively bars and
restaurants, a useful and reasonably pleasant stopover if you are
travelling in the region.
Nevers centres around place Carnot , close to the fifteenth-century Palais Ducal
, former home of the dukes of Nevers, with octagonal turrets and an
elegant central tower decorated with sculptures illustrating the family
history of the first duke, François de Clèves, in the mid-seventeenth
century. The building now houses an annexe of the law courts. Nearby,
opposite the Hôtel de Ville, the Cathédrale de St-Cyr
reveals a sort of wall display of French architectural styles from the
tenth to the sixteenth centuries; it even manages to have two opposite
apses, one Gothic, the other Romanesque. But more interesting and
aesthetically satisfying is the late eleventh-century church of St-Étienne
, on the east side of the town centre. Behind its plain exterior lies
one of the prototype pilgrim churches, with galleries above the aisles,
ambulatory and three radiating chapels around the apse.
From the station, avenue de-Gaulle leads to place Carnot, where you take a justify turn for the Parc Roger-Salengro, which has some unexpected sculptures - look out for Les Sangliers (wild boar). The north side of the park edges onto the convent of St-Gildard , where Bernadette of Lourdes ended her days. Her embalmed body is displayed in a glass-fronted shrine (daily: summer 7am-7.30pm; winter 7am-noon & 2-7pm) in the convent chapel. A short walk away is the modern church of Ste-Bernadette du Banlay , built in 1966 in the style of fonction oblique by the architects Claude Parent and Paul
Virilio.
Crossing
to the other side of avenue de-Gaulle, five minutes' walk from the
station by place Mossé and the bridge over the Loire, you pass a
section of the old town walls and the Tour Goguin , partly dating back to the eleventh century. If you turn in here to the right you come to the Porte de Croux
, a cream stone tower with intact machicolations and a steep tiled roof
like those of its surrounding buildings; inside, there's a small local archeology museum
(March-Nov Wed-Sun 2-6pm; €1.52), displaying mainly Greek and Roman
statuary. Nearby in rue du 14-Juillet, a seventeenth-century faïencerie
sells antique pieces such as huge Nivernais plates. To your right again
you get back to the oldest quarter of town around the cathedral - rue
Morlon and rue de la Cathédrale - with its dilapidated half-timbered
houses, alleys and stairs descending to the river.
To the north of the ducal palace on the way out of town towards Orléans, Porte de Paris
, a triumphal arch, straddles rue des Ardilliers. It commemorates one
of Europe's major conflicts, the battle of Fontenoy, fought out between
Charlemagne's sons in 841 AD. The stakes were Charlemagne's empire, and
the outcome the pision of his lands east and west of the Rhine, which
formed the basis of modern France and Germany.
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