Église Saint-Nicolas de Neufchâteau

Neufchâteau

Before Port took the lead, it was here that southern Lorraine honoured its saint. A Romanesque church was raised in the 12th century on the site of an older building: the crypt and the transept remain of it. A century later, taste having changed, a vast Gothic choir was grafted on, and as the ground falls away the whole took a rare form: a church on two levels, where each chapel of the lower church carries a chapel of the upper church. One reads there in succession the Romanesque, the Gothic, the Renaissance and the classicism of the altars, and there are kept an Entombment of the end of the 15th century and a classified organ. Neufchâteau also has its Joan of Arc moment: in 1428, armed bands having burned Domrémy, the villagers, Joan among them, took refuge for a few days in the town and lodged with a hostess who was called La Rousse. Joan was then sixteen; the following year she would go to pray before the relic of Saint Nicholas at Port before leaving the duchy. The two places stand forty kilometres apart.

Wikipédia — Église Saint-Nicolas de Neufchâteau ↗

Getting there : Place Saint-Nicolas, in the upper town; a climb on foot from the centre. In July and August the church is open to visitors; the rest of the year it opens only for the guided tours organised by the Ouest des Vosges tourist office and during the European Heritage Days. The lower church is seen with a guide.

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

Ambient sound