Saint-Flour: The Highest Cathedral in Europe and the Black Christ

Required Activities

• Stand on the parvis at 882 m, the highest cathedral forecourt in Europe, and read the inscription over the door that dates the façade to 1466 and names the two Montgon brothers, both bishops of Saint-Flour, who paid for it. Inside, walk the 65 metres from door to apse through five narrow naves and work out what is missing — like Blois and Bourges, this cathedral has no transept at all — then put your hand on the wall and see that the whole thing is black lava quarried at Liozargues

• At the entrance to the choir, against the left-hand pillar, find the great black walnut Christ they call the Beau Dieu noir, which a 2019 study dates to the 11th or 13th century and calls unique in Europe — and look for the burn marks on its back and left side, probably from the Revolution, which are most likely why somebody blackened it in the 19th century to hide the damage

• Walk, do not drive, the road between the upper town at 900 m and the lower town in the Ander valley, and stop at the basalt organ pipes along it: at first sight they look like a built fortification wall, and the test is to find the point where the columns fan and twist in a way no mason would cut them

• Walk round behind the cathedral apse onto the terrasse des Roches, built on the old ramparts, and from it pick out the lower town below, the Ander running to join the Truyère, and the line of the monts de la Margeride beyond — and remember you are standing on the 45th parallel, the same distance from the North Pole as from the equator, about 5,000 km each way

• Under the organ tribune near the door, find the 15th-century wall painting that lay under limewash until 1851 and work out which side is which: purgatory on the left, with a priest saying mass to get the souls out, and hell on the right. Then buy a jar of the honey from the hives that have been on the cathedral roof since September 2019 — the money goes to restoring the paintings you have just been looking at