Paray-le-Monial and Charolles: A Small Cluny, the Sacred Heart and the Venice of the Charolais

Required Activities

• Walk the basilica counting what Cluny had twice over: three naves here against five there, a single transept instead of a double one, three radiating chapels instead of five — then find the sharp drop in floor level between the apse and the ambulatory

• In the chapel of the Visitation, find the reliquary holding Margaret Mary's remains, and the monastery garden where the first chapel over the visions was raised in 1687, a year after the first altar to the Heart of Jesus

• Start at the place de la Balance at Charolles, where the Semence splits into two arms, and walk the peninsula they and the Arconce enclose — the château and the old Clarisses convent on the high ground, the church below — crossing as many as you can of the three bridges on the Arconce and five on the Semence

• Among the basilica's acanthus-leaf capitals, pick out the animals: two with eagles, seven with lions, and the three narrative capitals nobody has settled the meaning of

• At Charolles, find the Molin works, the traditional art faience still made in the town, and taste the Bœuf de Charolles that carries its own appellation d'origine