The most beautiful churches cathedrals basilicas and chapels New Aquitaine

Hemmed in the district of La Motte, this elegant Gothic building dominates the city of its 65 metres. It was built from 1364 onwards. Its octagonal steeple/porch is topped with a antifoudre boule boule ball, a real emblem of the regional capital before the Benedictine station is built. She replaced another wooden sphere of 600 kg installed in 1914 and removed two years later by the Germans. On each side of the south portal, two (very eroded) granite lions gave their names to the church and raised their guard: they come from Gallo-Roman funeral monuments and served in the Middle Ages to delimit the courts of the Vicomté and the St. Martial Abbey. A «hall» plan and the inclined pillars of the th century stained glass windows on the life of Saint-Jean-Baptiste and the life of the Virgin, and the socket containing the relics of Saint Martial, preserved here since the demolition of the Basilica.

A jewel of Romanesque art, this church was part of a vast priory attached to the Abbey of the "Chair God", founded by Robert de Turlande. The Benedictine monks contributed to its construction in 1122, imposing building on the edge of this vast plateau dominating the country. Despite the violence of the wars of Religion and the Sling, which only saves the choir in the ambulatory and the transept, it retains its nobility and greatness. In the interior, the ambulatory of the pilgrimage churches surrounds the enhanced chorus. Notice the sculpted capitals: the one located near the entrance to a juggler (frequent companion of pilgrims on the route of Compostelle) and the expression of the face of the very beautiful Christ, a pure gem of Spanish origin, which seems to follow you and, in turn, to speak, look and communicate his suffering and tenderness; view of the right, his eyes evoke the serenity of death seems to follow you. In summer, the church hosts classical music concerts at the "Festival de Saint Robert" and guided tours are organised.