Our French Adventure (Part two)

Autun

Just an hour west of Beaune lies the city of Autun. Founded during the reign of the first Roman emperor Augustus, the town still bears witness to its past in the form of walls, gates and a Roman theater.

Lili and I wanted to share the old center of Autun with our travel companions, especially the Cathedral of Autun (St. Lazare’s Cathedral). It is a major example of 12th century Romanesque architecture. Above the west entrance of the church you are immediately struck by the ‘The Last Judgement’ a visually astounding sculpture that gives you a taste of the high quality of art found within.

But our tour of the church was over before it began when Jenn twisted her ankle badly while photographing outside. We got some ice from a café nearby to keep down the swelling. It was decided to go to a nearby hospital for x-rays although we were pretty convinced it wasn’t broken.

Before heading out Lili and I made a quick dash to the Rolin Museum next door specifically to visit the amazing sculpture of “Eve’ (see above) which originally was located above the north transept of the church.

But there were other treasures in store for us in Musée Rolin… before we returned to the café we discovered on the top floor an entire room filled with pastels, paintings and watercolors of Maurice Denis. Fabulous to see all these works some of which I knew but had never seen live.

We then got Jenn to the hospital where accidents caused by a sports car rally through the city and a partial strike by the hospital’s employees made the wait so long that we eventually left not having seen a doctor. It all worked out though, on our way to Lyon the following morning….