It
would be hard to lose your bearings in Le Puy, for wherever you go
there's no losing sight of the colossal, brick-red statue of the Virgin
and Child that towers above the town on the Rocher Corneille , 755m above sea level and 130 abrupt metres above the lower town. The Virgin is cast from 213 guns captured at Sebastopol
and painted red to match the tiled roofs below. You can climb up to the
statue's base and, irreverent though it may seem, even up inside it
(€3.05). From here you get stunning views of the city, the church of St-Michel atop its needle-pointed pinnacle a few hundred metres northwest, and the surrounding volcanic countryside.
In
the maze of steep cobbled streets and steps that terrace the Rocher,
lace-makers - a traditional, though now commercialized, industry - do a
fine trade, with doilies and lace shawls hanging enticingly outside
souvenir shops. The main focus here, in the old town , is the Byzantine-looking Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-France
, begun in the eleventh century and decorated with parti-coloured
layers of stone and mosaic patterns and roofed with a line of six
domes. It is best approached up the rue des Tables, where you get the
full theatrical force of its five-storeyed west front towering above
you. In the rather exotic eastern gloom of the interior, a black-faced
Virgin in spreading lace and golden robes stands upon the main altar,
the copy of a revered original destroyed during the Revolution; the
copy is still paraded through the town every August 15. Other lesser
treasures are displayed at the back of the church in the sacristy,
beyond which is the entrance to the exceptionally beautiful
twelfth-century cloister (daily: April-June 9.30am-12.30pm
& 2-6pm; July-Sept 9.30am-6.30pm; rest of year 9.30am-noon &
2-6.30pm; €3.81), with its carved capitals, cornices and magnificent
views of the cathedral and the towering Virgin and Child overhead. The
passageway to the cloisters takes you past the so-called Fever Stone
, whose origins may have been as a prehistoric dolmen and which was
reputed to have the power of curing fevers. The surrounding
ecclesiastical buildings and the place du For , on the south side of the cathedral, all date from the same period and form a remarkable ensemble.
It's a ten-minute walk from the cathedral to the church of St-Michel (signposts lead the way), perched atop the 82-metre needle-pointed lava pinnacle of the Rocher d'Aiguilhe . The little Romanesque church, built on Bishop Godescalk's return from his pilgrimage and
consecrated in 962, is a beauty in its own right, and its improbable
situation atop this ridiculous needle of rock is quite extraordinary -
it's a long haul up 265 steps to the entrance (daily: mid-March to
mid-June 10am-noon & 2-5/7pm; mid-June to mid-Sept 9am-7pm;
mid-Sept to mid-Nov 9.30am-5/6pm; mid-Nov to mid-March 2-4pm; €2.29).
In the new part of town, beyond the squat Tour Pannessac , which is all that remains of the city walls, place de Breuil joins place Michelet and forms a social hub backed by the spacious Henri Vinay public gardens, where the Musée Crozatier
(May-Sept Mon & Wed-Sun Wed-Sat 10am-noon & 2-6pm, Sun 2-6pm;
Oct-April Mon & Wed-Sat 10am-noon & 2-4pm, Sun 2-4pm; €3.04) is
best known for its collections relating to the region's traditional
lace-making activities. Busy boulevard Maréchal-Fayolle converges with
place Cadelade, where there's another of Le Puy's crazier aspects: the
extraordinary bulbous tower of what used to be the Pagès Verveine distillery . The verveine (verbena) plant is normally used to make tisane
(herb tea), but in this region provides a vivid green, powerful
digestive liqueur instead. Production has now moved to a distillery 5km
outside Le Puy, which is open for guided tours and tasting (Mon-Fri
10am-noon & 1.30-6.30pm; €4.27). To get there take the N88 and exit
at the zone industrielle Blavozy.
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