Nevers France
Frequently Asked Questions
At the Port de la Jonction, the former commercial basin lined with plane trees. To reach it, the boat leaves the Loire lateral canal, enters a 2.8-kilometre branch and passes through two locks.
About fifteen minutes on foot. The route climbs gently towards the old town, set on a slope above the river. No shuttle is needed.
The ducal palace and the cathedral, grouped within a small area, then the Porte du Croux and the faience museum ten minutes further west. The Espace Bernadette adds another 10 to 15 minutes' walk: it is the first to drop if time is short.
It is a palace with the look of a château, built at the end of the 15th century for the counts and later dukes of Nevers, often described as one of the first châteaux of the Loire. Its pale façade is punctuated by a central tower carved with bas-reliefs.
It has two apses: a Romanesque one at the west end and a Gothic one at the east, joined in a single building. This is a rare configuration in France.
Yes. Bombed in 1944, the cathedral of Saint-Cyr-et-Sainte-Julitte received over the following decades a remarkable set of contemporary windows by several artists. The coloured light creates a rare dialogue between medieval stone and modern creation.
It is the signature colour of the local faience, a craft brought here at the end of the 16th century by Italian potters. The Frederic Blandin faience and fine arts museum gathers dishes, vases and figurines in it.
Yes, a few local workshops keep the craft alive and welcome visitors. Faience still fills the shop windows in the lanes of the old town.
The visionary of Lourdes spent thirteen years at the Saint-Gildard convent, where she died in 1879. Her body lies in a glass reliquary in the chapel of the Espace Bernadette, about ten minutes on foot from the old quarters.
It is a 14th-century gate tower, a remnant of the ramparts, surrounded by greenery west of the old centre. The faience museum stands close by.
