Christianity sacred sites in France

Church of Saint John the Baptist of Ostabat

Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France

Ostabat was one of medieval Europe's great Camino crossroads, where three of the four great French routes to Santiago converged before the final stage to...

Church of Saint Martin

Tarn-et-Garonne, France

The Church of Saint-Martin is reputedly among the oldest church sites in France, a Christian sanctuary built directly over the heated floors of a Gallo-Roman bathhouse....

Church of Saint Privat

Haute-Loire, France

In Saint-Christophe-sur-Dolaison, the first village-stage of the Via Podiensis after Le Puy, stands a twelfth-century Romanesque church of reddish volcanic stone....

Church of Saint Quiteria

Landes, France

On the hill of Le Mas above Aire-sur-l'Adour, this Romanesque church guards the tomb of Saint Quitterie and a carved 4th-century marble sarcophagus older than the building...

Church of Saint-Pierre of Bessuéjouls

Aveyron, France

Between Espalion and Estaing, the modest church of Saint-Pierre de Bessuéjouls keeps an extraordinary secret: a tiny Romanesque chapel raised in its bell tower and...

Church of St. Aignan, Chartres

Chartres, Eure-et-Loir, France

Hidden among the houses near Chartres' famous cathedral, the Church of St. Aignan represents something the cathedral cannot offer: intimacy....

Clairvaux Abbey

Ville-sous-la-Ferté, Grand Est, France

Clairvaux Abbey was founded in 1115 and became inseparable from Bernard of Clairvaux's Cistercian reform....

Collégiale Saint-Martin de Candes

Candes-Saint-Martin, Indre-et-Loire, France

A Gothic collegiate church in a Loire Valley village marks the exact spot where Martin of Tours, one of Western Christianity's most venerated saints, died in 397....

Collegiate Church of Saint Peter, La Romieu

Gers, France

The Collegiate Church of Saint-Pierre rises over La Romieu, a Gascon village founded as a sheltered waystation on the road to Santiago....

Condom Cathedral

Gers, France

Condom Cathedral, the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre, rises over the Gascon town above the Baïse river....

Éauze Cathedral

Gers, France

Saint-Luperc, the former cathedral of Éauze, stands on the site of Roman Elusa, a bishop's see since late antiquity....

Eglise Notre-Dame de Pontoise

Pontoise, Val-d'Oise, France

Église Notre-Dame de Pontoise has drawn pilgrims since the thirteenth century, when word spread of a Virgin who could grant stillborn babies a moment of life for baptism....

Église Notre-Dame-de-la-Mer, Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer

Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, Bouches-du-Rhône, France

Notre-Dame-de-la-Mer in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer is a fortified Romanesque church on the Camargue coast holding the relics of Mary Jacobe and Mary Salome, and, in its dark...

Église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, Martigues

Martigues, Bouches-du-Rhône, France

Église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine stands in Martigues' canal-threaded Île quarter, a 17th-century Baroque parish church dedicated to Mary Magdalene and a waypoint on the...

Flaran Abbey

Gers, France

Flaran Abbey, founded in 1151 at the confluence of the Auloue and Baïse, is among the best-preserved Cistercian abbeys of south-west France....

Gibraltar Stele

Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France

At a rural crossroads near Ostabat, about 30 km before Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, three of the great French routes to Santiago — from Le Puy, Vézelay, and Tours — converge...

Grotto of Lourdes (Grotto of Massabiell)

Part of Lourdes Sanctuary

Lourdes, Hautes-Pyrénées, France

In 1858, a fourteen-year-old named Bernadette knelt in this cave and conversed with the Virgin Mary....

La Madeleine (Church of Saint Mary Magdalene)

Paris, Paris, France

Fifty-two Corinthian columns surround a church that looks nothing like a church. No cross. No bell tower....

Le Puy

Le Puy-en-Velay, Haute-Loire, France

Two million years ago, underwater volcanoes created a needle of stone rising 82 meters from the valley floor. Prehistoric peoples built a dolmen on its summit....

Lectoure Cathedral

Gers, France

Lectoure Cathedral, dedicated to the martyr brothers Gervasius and Protasius, crowns a hilltop town in the Gers....

Lourdes Sanctuary

Lourdes, Hautes-Pyrénées, France

Since 1858, when fourteen-year-old Bernadette Soubirous saw a lady in white at the Grotto of Massabielle, Lourdes has drawn the sick and the seeking to its waters....

Mont Ventoux

Vaucluse, France

Rising alone above the Provençal landscape, the bare white summit of Mont Ventoux has been held sacred for three millennia — a deity to the Celto-Ligurians, crowned with...

Mont-Saint-Michele

Le Mont-Saint-Michel, Manche, France

In 708, the Archangel Michael appeared three times to Bishop Aubert of Avranches, commanding a church on this tidal island where sea and land war twice daily....

Montsegur

Montségur, Ariège, France

On March 16, 1244, over 200 Cathar perfecti walked into a pyre rather than renounce their beliefs....

Moulins Cathedral

Moulins, Allier, France

Moulins Cathedral is the episcopal and architectural setting for the Black Madonna of Moulins....

Mt. Blanc

Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, Haute-Savoie, France

The highest peak in western Europe, Mont Blanc has held human awe at every register: a feared 'cursed mountain' of fairies and dragons before 1786, the cradle of modern...

Mt. Canigou

Casteil, Pyrénées-Orientales, France

Canigou is the spiritual heart of Catalonia—a mountain visible from both France and Spain, from the Mediterranean and the Pyrenean heights....

Notre-Dame de Bon-Espoir

Inside Church of Notre-Dame, Dijon

Dijon, Côte-d’Or, France

In a Gothic church praised by Viollet-le-Duc as a masterpiece of reason, one of France's oldest Marian statues holds court....

Notre-Dame de Confession (Our Lady of Confession)

Inside Abbey of Saint-Victor

Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France

In the crypt of Marseille's oldest sanctuary, a Black Madonna waits in the half-darkness....

Notre-Dame de Fourvière

Lyon, Rhône, France

Crowning the hill that was the cradle of Roman Lyon, Notre-Dame de Fourvière is the Marian heart of the city — built by public subscription in thanksgiving for deliverance...

Notre-Dame de Sous-Terre (Our Lady Under the Earth)

Inside Chartres Cathedral

Chartres, Eure-et-Loir, France

Beneath the soaring Gothic nave of Chartres Cathedral lies its oldest and most mysterious space: the crypt where Notre-Dame de Sous-Terre—Our Lady Under the Earth—has been...

Notre-Dame des Malades

Vichy, Allier, France

In the heart of old Vichy, two churches share one roof. The 18th-century chapel holds what remains of a medieval Black Virgin—her head saved by an eleven-year-old during...

Notre-Dame-des-Pauvres Church, Aubrac

Aveyron, France

On the high, treeless Aubrac plateau stands Notre-Dame-des-Pauvres, the late-twelfth-century church of the medieval Dômerie d'Aubrac, a monastery-hospital founded to...

Our Lady of Good Deliverance, Paris

Inside Chapelle Notre-Dame de Bonne Délivrance

Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France

Notre-Dame de la Bonne-Délivrance—the Black Madonna of Paris—has received the prayers of pilgrims for nearly a millennium....

Our Lady of Le Puy

Le Puy-en-Velay, Haute-Loire, France

Rising from a 132-meter volcanic spur, Notre-Dame de France dominates Le Puy-en-Velay's extraordinary skyline....

Our Lady of Le Puy Catholic Church, Figeac

Lot, France

On the hill above Figeac stands the town's oldest parish church, dedicated to Our Lady of Le Puy....

Our Lady of Peace, Paris

Inside Chapelle de Picpus in Paris

Paris, Paris, France

Notre-Dame de la Paix—Our Lady of Peace—healed the young Louis XIV in 1658 and became one of Paris's most venerated Madonnas....

Our Lady of Rocamadour

Inside The Sanctuary of Rocamadour

Rocamadour, Lot, France

Carved into a limestone cliff above the Alzou Valley, Rocamadour has drawn pilgrims for nearly nine centuries to venerate a small, dark statue known as the Black Madonna....

Place du Plot

Haute-Loire, France

Place du Plot is not a temple but a threshold. This busy square in the old town of Le Puy-en-Velay holds the city's oldest fountain and sits at the junction of two great...

Pontigny Abbey

Pontigny, Yonne, France

Three Archbishops of Canterbury fled England for this Burgundian abbey—Thomas Becket the most famous among them....

Reims Cathedral (Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims)

Reims, Marne, France

For eight hundred years, Reims Cathedral has stood as the sacred heart of French national identity....

Relic of Mary Magdalene at La Madeleine

Inside La Madeleine (Church of Saint Mary Magdalene)

Paris, Paris, France

The small bone reliquary is a distinct devotional object inside the Church of La Madeleine....

Relics of Mary Magdalene at Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume

Inside Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, Basilica of Mary Magdalene

Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, Var, France

A reliquary in the basilica’s crypt holds a skull venerated as Mary Magdalene’s. Its devotional identity is not a scientifically established identification.

Reliquary of Saint Mary Magdalene at Vézelay

Inside Basilique de Vézelay

Vézelay, Yonne, France

Beneath Vézelay's great Romanesque basilica, in a crypt that has survived Revolution and restoration, a gold-and-glass reliquary holds a small, age-darkened bone....

Rennes le Chateau

Rennes-le-Château, Aude, France

A country priest discovers something in his church and becomes inexplicably wealthy. Treasure? Sacred secrets?...

Saint Odile Spring, Mont St. Odile

Ottrott, Bas-Rhin, France

On a pink sandstone peak above the Alsatian plain, pilgrims have sought healing for over thirteen centuries....

Saint-Geniez-d’Olt Church

Aveyron, France

In the Lot valley below the Aubrac, Saint-Geniez-d'Olt grew rich on cloth and built itself a substantial domed parish church in the southern Baroque-classical manner....

Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, Basilica of Mary Magdalene

Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, Var, France

The Gothic basilica at Saint-Maximin houses relics venerated as Mary Magdalene’s in its crypt. The church and the relic are related subjects within one visit.