Discover the heart of Chalon-sur-Saône

Although Chalon’s Christian heritage suffered greatly during the French Revolution, it remains omnipresent: the must-see Saint-Vincent cathedral, the imposing Saint-Pierre church with its architecture typical of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, the neo-Gothic Saint-Cosme church, not forgetting the Citadelle chapel and its statue of the Virgin Mary, erected in thanksgiving to the Blessed Virgin for having protected the town from the Prussians in 1870, or the Chapelle de la Colombière, designed by Auguste Perret…. And it’s often enough to look up in the streets of Chalon to spot a Virgin nestled in an old building…

A first Gallo-Roman enclosure was erected in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries, of which the Tour de l’Evêché, Tour de Marcilly and Tour Saudon remain. In the 16th century, with the advent of the cast-iron cannonball, the medieval enclosures no longer fulfilled their protective role, and new fortification work was carried out by Sienese engineer Girolamo Bellamarto between 1547 and 1555. Chalon’s ramparts and bastions (Royal, Saint-Pierre, Saint-Paul, Saint-Vincent) are ideal for a pleasant stroll. They also provide an opportunity to discover a type of fortification little known in France, designed a century before those of the illustrious Vauban! The counter-mine gallery is still visible today in the Saint-Pierre bastion and can be visited with the Espace Patrimoine.