NOTRE-DAME-LA-GRANDE CHURCH

Whether it's your first encounter with it, or you've been strolling along its forecourt for years, your eyes can't take your eyes off it. It's the jewel in the crown of the town's heritage. Notre-Dame-la-Grande, this magnificent Romanesque church, masterfully restored during major works carried out between 1992 and 2004, is above all famous for its facade, sculpted in the early ^12th century.

Surprised by its beauty and the quality and richness of its ornamentation, you'll discover a frieze depicting episodes from the holy story, from the temptation of Adam and Eve to the Nativity. Above, apostles, bishops and the pope are arranged on either side of the single central bay. At the top, in a mandorla, Christ in glory, surrounded by the symbols of the four evangelists, dominates the whole.

Composed of a central nave flanked by two very high side aisles, a common feature of Poitevin Romanesque architecture, the church is extended by a transeptless bay bearing the bell tower, and by a choir with an ambulatory and radiating chapels built over a crypt.

The interior features wall decorations dating from the 1850s. Only the paintings on the choir vault and those in the ^11th-century crypt are Romanesque. The 11 chapels on the north side and in the chevet of the church date from the ^15th and ^16th centuries. Flamboyant Gothic or Renaissance in style, they feature pointed vaults in the former and coffered ceilings in the latter.