Abbatiale Saint-Michel de Nantua

Nantua

Wedged between its emerald lake and the cliffs of the Haut-Bugey, Nantua was born of a hermitage. Tradition has it that in the 7th century Saint Amand, drawn by the solitude of this wild cleft in the mountains, founded a Benedictine monastery here, around which the town grew. A staging post on the roads to Switzerland and Italy and on the routes to Compostela, the abbey prospered until the Hungarian raids that devastated it in 959. To recover, it gave itself to the young abbey of Cluny: the present abbey church, rebuilt from the late 11th to the early 12th century, was consecrated under the patronage of Saints Peter and Paul by the great abbot Hugh of Semur in person. Fifty-four metres long and built of the local limestone, it remains the most important Romanesque building in the Ain, a subtle blend of Romanesque art and Cluniac tradition: its central portal is held to be one of the finest in Burgundian Romanesque, despite the mutilations of the Revolution, and its choir marries Romanesque and Gothic beneath carved marble angels. In the chapel of Sainte-Anne, with its astonishing Renaissance vault and pendant keystone, the visitor discovers an unexpected treasure: "The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian", a canvas by Eugène Delacroix. The great organ by Nicolas-Antoine Lété (1847), with its 42 stops and more than 2,800 pipes, fills this thousand-year-old nave with sound at renowned concerts. A listed monument historique since 1907, the abbey church remains the soul of the little capital of the Haut-Bugey.

Getting there : Place d'Armes, in the centre of Nantua, a stone's throw from the lake; car parks in town. A40 motorway, Nantua exit.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound