Limoges

Musée national Adrien Dubouché

Porcelain was born in Limoges after the discovery, around 1768, of a kaolin deposit at Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche, some forty kilometres away. In the 19th century the city became the world capital of porcelain, with dozens of factories, bottle kilns smoking in every district and American firms such as Haviland exporting to the United States. The Musée national Adrien Dubouché, named after the industrialist and patron who developed it in the 19th century, today holds 18,000 works, 5,000 of them on display, making it the largest public collection of Limoges porcelain in the world. The renovated galleries begin with techniques, from shaping to decoration, then trace the history of world ceramics, Italian faience, Japanese stoneware, Chinese porcelain, before lingering over Limoges production, from imperial dinner services to Art Deco vases and pieces by today's designers. To see a kiln from the inside, carry on to the Four des Casseaux, a bottle kiln from 1900 listed as a historic monument, on the banks of the Vienne.

Gare des Bénédictins

The Gare des Bénédictins takes its name from the former Benedictine convent that occupied the site. The Paris-Orléans railway company began building it in March 1924 and opened it on 18 May 1929, to designs by the architect Roger Gonthier. For lack of space, the building was constructed over ten tracks, on a slab overlooking the railway cutting, a rare arrangement in France. The building combines a great hall topped by a copper dome rising to 31 metres and a 67-metre campanile carrying the clock, visible from far across the city. The sculptures and stained glass draw on the regional repertoire, with foliage motifs and female statues on the façade. Listed as a historic monument in 1975, the station almost disappeared on 5 February 1998, when a fire destroyed the dome's timber frame; it was rebuilt in less than two years. Regularly named among the most beautiful stations in France, it is best seen from the nearby gardens in the late afternoon, or at night when it is lit up.

Boucherie quarter

Limoges grew up as two rival towns: La Cité, around the cathedral, and Le Château, around the abbey of Saint-Martial, each with its own consuls and ramparts until the 18th century. The Boucherie quarter belongs to Le Château. For centuries, a handful of butchers' families handed down their stalls here, married among themselves and formed a closed community, with its own confraternity and festivals. The pedestrianised Rue de la Boucherie, about 130 metres long, is lined with half-timbered houses with stalls open on the ground floor. In the middle, the chapel of Saint-Aurélien, dedicated to the patron saint of butchers, keeps an ornate interior of altarpieces and wooden statues, and still belongs to the confraternity. The Maison Traditionnelle de la Boucherie shows the workshop, kitchen and bedroom of a butcher's family. Every October, the Frairie des Petits Ventres, a food festival devoted to offal, turns the quarter into one great street table, with tripe, girot blood sausage and grilled meats. The Halles Centrales and the Cour du Temple, a Renaissance inner courtyard with a gallery and staircase, are a few steps away.

Saint-Étienne cathedral

On the hill of La Cité, Saint-Étienne cathedral was built in the Gothic style from 1273, on the site of a Romanesque church of which the crypt and the base of the bell tower remain. Construction stretched over more than six centuries: the choir was finished in the 14th century, the transept and the first bays of the nave in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the nave was only joined to the bell tower in 1888. The result is remarkably coherent, because Limousin granite imposed the same rigour throughout. The 62-metre bell tower rests on a Romanesque porch. To the north, the Saint-Jean portal, built from 1516 to 1530, is one of the last flourishes of Flamboyant Gothic in France, with 16th-century carved wooden doors. Inside, the rood screen made in 1533 and 1534, 11.50 metres wide and 6.50 metres high, has been reassembled against the inside of the west front; its reliefs mix the labours of Hercules with figures of the Christian virtues. The 14th-century bishops' tombs in the choir are also remarkable. The Jardins de l'Évêché and the Musée des Beaux-Arts adjoin the building.

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Limoges

The Bishop's Palace, built in the 18th century for the bishops of Limoges beside the cathedral, houses the Musée des Beaux-Arts, whose windows look out over the gardens and the Vienne. Its enamel collection is one of the most important in the world. In the Middle Ages, the workshops of Limoges produced the oeuvre de Limoges, champlevé enamel on gilded copper, exported throughout Europe in the form of reliquaries, crosses and croziers. In the Renaissance the technique changed: painted enamel covered whole plaques with mythological scenes and portraits, by masters such as Léonard Limosin. The galleries lead right up to the enamellers of the 20th century. The museum also has an Egyptian section, paintings, including several canvases by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, born in Limoges in 1841 into a family of tailors, and archaeological collections on Augustoritum, the Roman town founded under Augustus. Admission is free on the first Sunday of the month and for under-26s.

Martyred village of Oradour-sur-Glane

On 10 June 1944, four days after D-Day, a company of the SS Das Reich division surrounded Oradour-sur-Glane, a small town some twenty kilometres north-west of Limoges. The men were taken to barns and shot; the women and children were locked in the church, which was set on fire. 643 people were killed, then the village was burned. After the war, the State decided to preserve the ruins as they were and to build a new village alongside. The martyred village is visited in silence; the Centre de la Mémoire, which serves as its entrance, is closed for works until June 2027 and a temporary welcome point in the car park replaces it. In the village you see the main street, the tracks of the tramway that ran to Limoges, the shops, the garage, the burnt-out cars and the everyday objects left where they were. The church, the execution sites and the cemetery, with its memorial displaying objects found on the victims, mark the end of the route. Allow at least two hours, and consider leaving young children outside the memorial if you feel the images are too harrowing.