Couleur locale à Brioude

I regret that I didn't walk into the chapelle Saint-Michel inside the church in Brioude. You can see it in the photo below. I was too focused on seeing the church the way I had seen it pictured in the Michelin Guide, in a photo looking from the western end of the church toward the east and the altar. Oh well... The wall paintings in the chapel date back to the 12th century.

Also, Walt and Tasha were outside the church waiting for me. The weather was cold and windy (though sunny). After my quick look around inside Saint-Julien, wanted to tell Walt he really should go in and look around for a few minutes too. He did, and I waited outside with the dog. I took advantage of the time to walk around the outside of the church, taking the photos I posted day before yesterday.

The pebble floors inside the Brioude church are remarkable. I read somewhere that they were first laid down in the 12th century and then either restored or extended throughout the church in the 16th. The towns of the Auvergne region are striking in part because of all the cobblestone streets everywhere, and here they even become the floor of a magnificent building.

From the Michelin Green Guide:

« L'intérieur de l'église se caractérise par une belle polychromie de pierres grises, rouges, blanches et noires qui proviennent de carrières voisines... Ils s'harmonisent avec le pavement, en galets de l'Allier noirs et blancs, aux motifs géométriques d'arabesques. »

“The interior of the church is characterized by a beautiful polychrome design using gray, red, white, and black stones that came from nearby quarries ... They are in harmony with the floors, made using black and white pebbles from the Allier river, laid down in  the geometrical patterns and arabesques.” 

The town crowds right up to the church except around the eastern end (le chevet), making it hard to get photos of the exteriors. Here's one view from the nearby streets of Brioude It shows the church's "lantern tower" — a tall structure built over the junction of the four arms of a cruciform (cross-shaped) church, with openings through which light from outside can shine down to the building. Many lantern towers are octagonal, and that shape gives an extra dimension to the decorated interior of the dome. The lantern tower was the last part of the church to be built.


I have a series of photos of interior and exterior details of the basilica that I want to post over the next few days. Maybe it's time for another slide show. We're having rainy, chilly weather now, April being cruel and all, so processing such photos to put them in a slide show will occupy my time.