Church and Temple Crawling

Last Wednesday we drove a loop north of Mâcon and saw some great churches as well as an ancient Roman temple and a Buddhist temple! We came back with lots of pictures; here's a small selection of them.

The drive was, as always in rural France so far, beautiful and easy. There was almost no one on the roads and they were smooth and wider than those in Britain.




First stop was the village of Chapaize. The church was quite pretty on the outside and the interior was much more impressive than we expected, with huge round pillars. Almost no decoration, though.








Next stop was Gourdon, a village with an old church at the top of a hill. It has a stern grey exterior, but inside it is all a soft pink! There are very cute carvings on the capitals and some faded frescoes in the choir. Everything dates from the 1100s.







Yesterday it rained and I got to do website work, so you can read more about Gourdon Church here and see lots more photos here.

About 15 miles further down the winding road, we stopped at Perrecy-les-Forges. We were here for the sculptures, but were surprised at how large and nice the outside was too. The church's brownish stone and setting on a grassy slope reminded me strongly of Ireland.





The main attraction at Perrecy is the porch, which has some great 12th-century sculptures.


The best of the capitals is this one of two elephants, clearly carved by a sculptor who had never seen one! Note the tiny ears and tusks going in the wrong direction.


On the inside of the doorway, a friendly Archangel Michael seems to welcome visitors into the church.


The tympanum, with Christ flanked by two six-winged seraphim. Below are somewhat damaged scenes of the Passion of Christ (kiss of Judas, walk to Calvary, etc.).


The interior, in need of some TLC.

From this church it was almost an hour drive to our last and most important stop, Autun Cathedral. But along the way we discovered an unexpected sight - a Tibetan Buddhist temple! Of course we pulled in and had a look. It was so interesting, and such a fun change of pace from our Romanesque churches. And they had wonderfully clean bathrooms. There was hardly anyone around at first, except for a Dutch family eating lunch out of their camper in the parking lot. But later (about 2:00), the bookshop opened and a few more visitors appeared.


Temple gate


Prayer wheel house


Main temple building

After some hesitation out on the porch, David cracked the door and peeked inside. I'm so glad he did. It was magnificent - alive with color and so many things to look at. There were huge statues of Buddhist deities, murals of Buddhist stories, round meditation cushions, photos of the Dalai Lama and a young man that appears to be especially revered here, side altars, yak butter candles, and offerings of sweets.





Then it was on to Autun Cathedral, which was so fabulous I am still going through the gazillion photos we took. So more on that, and what we've been doing since, tomorrow!