Saturday, 13 September 2014

Catching up

One of the few churches of which Eduard van Boxtel’s website had interior photographs, but I did not, was the church of Vinzelles.

Vinzelles
After we had visited the church of Nancelle, knowing that Vinzelles was close by and that the mairie of Vinzelles was open that day, it seemed a good idea to catch up on this particular church. Having learned from previous experience, we did not go to the mairie straight away, but tried the church door first, taking the chance that the door was open. And it was!

Decorated cupola
The interior of the church was more interesting than I had assumed based on van Boxtel’s page. The church has a cupola on squinches, richly decorated in the 19th Century, at least that is what I assume on the basis of what I have seen in other churches.
This visit also gave me an opportunity to have a good look at the exterior of the church. It is a very simple building, with hardly any decorations.

Choir
Only the main and the side portal are decorated with capitals, even though these have been heavily damaged in the course of the centuries. Of course this visit also resulted in a new album!
The amount of interesting churches around Mâcon I have not yet seen is diminishing. The only one still on my list is the church of Saint-Romain-des-Iles, direction Beaujolais. But the mairie there is only open two mornings and one afternoon a week….

Damaged capital
The Mâconnais, not far from La Tuilerie de Chazelle boasts a rich collection of Romanesque churches.

Saturday, 30 August 2014

The key

Around Fley
We have a client in Rimont, a hamlet resorting under the commune of Fley. On our way to this client we always pass through Fley, and we have visited the church there several times. The first time we had made some pictures of the outside, but in front of the door that was open was mounted a grill, in order to be able to look inside. However, it was not possible to make a proper picture of the interior. During a second visit, this time on a Sunday, the grill was still locked. That churches are closed on Sundays is not as exceptional as it seems. The secularization in France has been progressing quickly lately, and some priests are serving a group of between 10 and 20 former parishes. In Chazelle for example, mass is celebrated only twice a year; in bigger villages of the parish this can be a bit more often.
There are a few possibilities to visit a church other than for a service. This is not a scientific overview, but it seems to be pretty near the truth.

The church of Fley
1. The church is opened daily by the sexton, if only to air it and get rid of some of the moisture, a real problem in a lot of churches. Fortunately this is the case with most churches around here.
2. The church is locked every day, and the key is with the mairie. In some cases someone from the mairie opens the church door when the mairie is open (which is often only some hours per week). It is always wise to check the door before one marches into the mairie.
3. The church is locked every day, and the key is with the mairie. When one asks for it, one gets the key, or, if they do not want to give the key to a stranger (this is quite rare), the key holder will be phoned or one gets name and phone number of that person. In the latter case one has to contact this key holder.

Interior seen through the grill
In Fley we encountered a fourth, and quite different possibility. The mairie is only open on Thursday afternoon, and two hours late on a Friday afternoon. When we passed by two weeks ago and asked for the key, we got no for an answer. The secretary was rather amazed that we asked for the key in the first place, and refused to hand it over to us before she had consulted the mayor. She was going to phone us as soon as the key was available for us. After we left our phone number at the mairie we went home, a bit disappointed though.

The grill
The next week we received a number of phone calls, but Fley did not call once. Reason why, two weeks later on another Thursday, we in our turn phoned the mairie in Fley. The same lady answered the phone, and this time the answer came as a surprise: “Of course, the key is on my desk, waiting for you to pick it up”. Fley is about half an hour from here by car, so we were there in no time. The mayor happened to be there too, he welcomed us very friendly, and while the secretary gave us “the” key he disappeared into his office.

Interior
The church is very close to the Mairie, hence seconds later we were standing in front of the grill finding out that “the” key did not fit. Since most churches also have a side entrance, we marched around the church, but in vain. And again we went back to the mairie; however, this time we left it soon with another key marked “église – grille”. Whether the church interior was worth all the hassle, one can judge for himself by looking at the picture album

The choir
Of course it would be fascinating to find out why we were send off the first time, and why we were helped (albeit in 2 stages) the second time. My theory is that the inhabitants of Fley had chosen a new mayor during the elections in March (however, this is a fact), and that this mayor appointed a new secretary. She had no idea how this whole key business was supposed to be handled, and since hardly anybody ever wanted that key anyway she decided to send those awkward strangers off empty handed, thinking that these foreigners would never come back. The fact that the mayor happened to be there that afternoon, might have helped a bit as well!

Interiorr
If the church of Chazelle happens to be locked one day, the proprietors of La Tuilerie de Chazelle know where to find the key, and that is not inside the mairie!

Saturday, 16 August 2014

Around Chagny

Between Givry and Chagny
In my previous blog I mentioned that the churches and buildings around Chagny which we visited during our last quest were not very spectacular. Having said that, the landscape around Chagny is very pretty, partially located in the vineyards of the Chalonnais and already bordering those of the Côte d’Or.
And since this blog is not necessarily restricting itself to the “great” churches I would like to elaborate a bit on the previous trip.









The “Cellier aux moines” in Givry for example looks out over these vineyards, possibly those belonging to this domain. The parcels of land here have not been consolidated, and when you think about it this is not illogical. Every bit of soil here has its own characteristics, and one parcel might produce a Grand Cru, while the neighbouring parcel is only producing 1er Crus. A parcel of vineyards is definitely quite different from a parcel of meadow in a Dutch polder.

Working in the vineyards of Givry
The Château de Rully is not just a mediaeval castle, it is also a wine château. It is beautifully located amidst the vineyards, and in July and August they accommodate individual visitors at € 8.00 pp.

The Rully castle set amongst the vineyards
The hamlet of Agneux forms almost an integral part of Rully, and has a little chapel. The chapel is in private hands, hence cannot be visited. However, it is visible from the road, and although neither Agneux nor the chapel are easily to be found, why not pop by when one is in the vicinity?

The chapel in Agneux
When traveling from the South direction Changy or Beaune one passes through the village of Fontaines. On one of the first street corners another chapel can be found, almost perched against the house of the owner. Again, no spectacular buildings, but not every building can resemble the Empire State Building…

The chapel in Fontaines
Churches which are undoubtedly entirely Romanesque can be found a stonethrow away from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Saturday, 2 August 2014

Making up the balance

As mentioned earlier, the time has come to slowly start making up the balance for the Romanesque churches in 71. To ease searching a bit I have created a map which has been cut down to the bone. It contains only the churches still to be seen, including opening times and phone numbers of the town halls.

Romanesque churches around Chagny
The amount of churches still to be visited is manageable. They are mainly 3-star churches of which I have not yet seen the interior, similarly a few 2-star churches, and last but not least a handful of churches, chapels or buildings for which no assessment has been made yet. On top of that there are only a few 3 or 2 star churches which I have not yet visited at all. Around Changy there is quite a big cluster of those sort of buildings, but our latest visit has reduced the number of buildings to be visited considerably. The first map in this blog shows all churches in the area; the second shows today’s status. Having said this, the pictures are a bit distorted by the fact that I have removed an occasional church of the second map, because there is no information at all about that church available. Often the building has most likely been demolished completely, or it may be recognisable from a window, which is all that remains in al old building, but in which building?

Romanesque churches (te be visited) around Chagny
The qualitative harvest of this latest trip was mediocre. We visited (in the order we toured them) :
1. Givry, Cellier aux moines, a bulding which was findable, however, it was located on private property, and it could not be approached.
2. Fontaines, the village church. The key was not available at the mairie, but they phoned the key keeper for us. It turned out to be the only building we saw from the inside, with hardly any Romanesque remains. It was assessed at 1 star after our visit.

Fontaines : remains of a Romanesque chapel
3. Fontaines, chapel. At the mairie they explained us where it could be found. It turned out to be private property, behind a wall.
4. Rully, the château. It could be visited, but the only Romanesque part was the donjon. And to pay € 8 entrance fee just to see a donjon….
5. Agneux (Rully), chapel. Also on private property, hence not to be visited.
6. Maizières, building of a former abbey. All buildings were obscured by a tall stone wall, and hence invisible.

Maizières : wall around the abbey?
7. Saint-Loup-de-la-Salle, a 3-star church I did not know. Unfortunately closed, hence it will stay on the map a little longer.
The map with all churches also shows :
Churches visited a long time ago : Germolles, Chagny, Farges-lès-Chalon, La Loyere, Lessard-le-National, Bouzeron, Mellecey, Touches.
Canceled, because not wotrth seeing : Saint-Martin-sous-Montaigu.
Saved for a next visit : Remigny, Chaudenay, Saint-Loup-de-la-Salle (interior), Mellecey (interior).
Well, we are getting there slowly!

Saint-Loup-de-la-Salle
Churches which are undoubtedly entirely Romanesque can be found a stonethrow away from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Saturday, 19 July 2014

A private chapel on private property

We had already seen the church or chapel of Nancelle, a hamlet near Mâcon from a distance.

Saint-Martin - Nancelle
The chapel however is located on private property and in private hands, and a sign “Beware of the dog” certainly stopped us from sneaking in any further. Recently I heard from van Boxtel, that he had contact with the owner, and that he was invited to visit the chapel.
However, he does not exactly live next door, and he had mailed the owner that he could not make it to France this year anymore, but that he knew someone who lives in the neighbourhood and who is also interested in the subject. We received the phone number, made the call, and we could pop by the same day.

The cupola on squinches
The owner and his wife were a very amiable couple. I was allowed to photograph to my heart’s content, we were given a very interesting tour in and around the chapel, were told the history of the place and were assured that we could freely use the pictures I had taken and the brochure he had composed. Hence this picture album! And if we wanted to know anything at a later time, we should not hesitate to give him a call.

Interior Saint-Martin - Nancelle
Of course it was very convenient to have an invitation.
However, I am convinced that those who are really interested in this little Romanesque gem, and who take the trouble of finding their way to Nancelle will find the owner most likely more than willing to give those who ring the bell at the gate the same treatment we received!

Detail of the bell tower
The Mâconnais, not far from La Tuilerie de Chazelle boasts a rich collection of Romanesque churches.

Saturday, 5 July 2014

Only one star!!!

Whilst trying to sort out the last Romanesque churches in 71 I had not seen yet I did not have high expectations anymore.

The choir, seen from the nave
More often than not I receive an answer from van Boxtel to the extent that there is hardly anything interesting after he has studied the pictures of the latest batch. It happens seldom that a church is promoted to a one star or even a two star church, but that is about it. Bu now I should have developed an eye for the value of a church, but…
Saint-Léger-sous-Beuvray was such a church. At arrival I found a plaque on the wall saying, that the present church was built between 1856 and 1858, and that it had had 4 predecessors : a 4th C. pagan temple, a 7th C. church, a 12th C. Romanesque church and a 16th C. church.

The choir
That did not sound very promising. According to the brochures of Pastourisme, of which I found one in the church, the choir was partially Romanesque. A few lines down, in the same folder it even mentioned the whole choir as being Romanesque. When we entered the church, I was struck by the beautifully lit apse, which had in the centre a lovely cross (1852). It seemed that this might be an interesting discovery. The strange thing about the apse was, in my opinion, the shape of the arcatures. I have seen quite a few of those arcades, but these shapes seemed new to me. For some unclear reason they resembled to me something I had seen in some English Norman churches. But anyway, when Pastourisme declares something to be Romanesque, it has to be Romanesque! Hence I started an extensive photo session.


Arcatures
Each capital, the arcatures, each interesting detail, etc. was photographed. Whilst taking pictures of the choir I stumbled upon a pilaster canelé (fluted pilaster) which was according to Pastourisme "modelled after the pilasters of the Cathedral of Autun". In my view they could have been old, but they could also have been neo-Romanesque. Anyway, it looked old enough to merit a picture.
After I had passed on the pictures to "Le Site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne" the answer came quickly.  The church was only worth one lousy star, and only because there were some old fluted pilasters from the Romanesque period to be found in the church! Which proves that appearances can be deceptive, certainly when one lacks thorough knowledge of the subject….

Romanesque pilaster
Churches which are undoubtedly entirely Romanesque can be found a stonethrow away from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Saturday, 14 June 2014

History and statistics

As mentioned earlier, this blog has strong links with "Le Site sur l'Art Romane en Bourgogne".

It all started with Chazelle
Even though I was already interested in Romanesque architecture, also possessing a not insignificant number of photographs of Romanesque churches in many villages in the department Sâone-et-Loire, my picture collection started to be taken more seriously when I started to study the above mentioned site a bit more in detail. The first serious step was creating an interactive map with "all" Romanesque churches in the area. The next step was a logical one: create similar maps for the remaining three Burgundian departments. But, since Sâone-et-Loire is my homebase, and not exactly unknown territory, I concentrated heavily on this area.

Cluny followed quickly
My first contact with the webmaster of the above mentioned site, Eduard van Boxtel, goes back to approx. August 2012, after which date I started to transfer bulky batches of photographs to the Netherlands.
May 2013 my interactive map for 71 was ready, and then it became challenging to visit those places of which neither van Boxtel nor I possessed any photographs. Of course there were plenty of places I had never even heard of, but when you start near home it does not take long to scrap places off the list as "being done".
At the moment my cooperation with van Boxtel has been going for almost 2 years, and I managed to complete his list of 4-star churches as wel as that of 3-star churches with my photographs; hence it is time to make up the balance.

Interactive map 71
Sâone-et-Loire boasts in total roughly 456 small and bigger Romanesque churches or buildings, of which it is partly (33%) unknown whether there are Romanesque remains at all. Of these 456 churches I have visited, before and after 2012, 391 churches, which is 86%. Of those 391 churches van Boxtel has chosen 231 buildings of which he has used one or more of my pictures for his site "Bourgogne Romane". That makes up for 51% of the total number, and 59% of the churches I took pictures of. These figure are a bit obscure, since van Boxtel does not prepare separate picture pages for every and each church he considers to be a 1-star or 2-star church. It means however, that if I wanted or could complete van Boxtel's collection, there are about 65 churches still to be visited.

Former church / habitat - Confrançon
There is a snag in this figure of 65. Of a small number of churches it is only known that they are located in a certain village or hamlet. In some cases the remains of these churches are hidden inside a habitat, or even completely revamped into a residential house. Some good examples (and there are more!) are the unfindable chapel in Laives, or the church in the hamlet of Vincelles near Nanton. Neither of them could be found, at least not without assistance of a local historian, and even a local person we addressed in the street had never heard of remains of churches or chapels around there.


Former church / habitat - Ciergues
The bottom line is, that there are still approx. 50 churches on my list. Amongst those there is one 3-star church, one 1-star church and there are three 2-star churches. Those are churches of which van Boxtel (still) has more information than I have. The rest of the churches to be visited fall under the category "still to be studied, before an assessment can be made". And then there are still some churches which could be interesting inside, but which were closed during a previous visit. For those it is a matter of returning one day the town hall is open (sometimes only 4 hours a week!) to ask for the key.

Chapelle Saint-Pierre? - Jalogny
Slowly the net around the churches of 71 is closing in around the "unknown" churches of 71. And one day I hope another email will arrive, similar to the one quoted below:
"Hi, Cees,
A festive instant: all 3-star churches of S&L have a page on my site! Of this I am very proud, and I would like to thank you again, because thanks to your enormous contribution this has been realised a lot quicker than I had anticipated."
And that is a nice boost, is it not?

Chapelle and source Saint-Nizier? - Jalogny
A good base of operations for search for Romanesque churches in 71 is :La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Saturday, 17 May 2014

In the right place at the right time

Some time ago I received an email from a lady of the Office de Tourisme of Buxy with the question if she could use some of my pictures of the Romanesque churche in Saint-Martin-du-Tartre for a tourist guide of this typer of churches in the ccScc (a body uniting a number of communities in the South-Chalonnais).

ccScc
She had been browsing the internet in search of pictures, and she had stumbled, through the site “Bourgogne Romane”, on one of my picture albums. The guide was an initiative of the ccScc, not published before, and it would make an inventory of the 19 Romanesque churches in the area. The lady coordinated the project, a group (Pastourisme), specialised in the churches of the diocese of Autun would write the texts, and the Chalon branch of a French club of amateur photographers would provide the pictures. In a word, why in heaven’s name did they need my pictures of that church? I am certainly not an outstanding photographer!

2012 Saint-Martin-de-Tartre
The answer was a logical as it was simple. I visited this church for the first time on a foggy day in October 2012. The church was open (which is not always the case in churches around here), so I could shoot as many pictures of the interior as my heart desired. I visit rather a lot of churches in the course of time, hence I do not always remember whether a church was open or closed during a previous visit. When we were near that church again, this time on a sunny day in May 2013, I decided to make some pictures of the outside with a nice blue sky. The door was open, and just to make sure I had not missed it I walked in to take some pictures of the interior. This time however there was scaffolding up, making crossing and choir inaccessible, and it hid the interesting parts of this church from view.

2013/14 Saint-Martin-de-Tartre
At the beginning of 2014, when the photo club was on its way to photograph the 19 churches, they found the interior of this church still under renovation; hence they could not take any pictures of the crossing and choir of the church. And that is where I came in the picture, like a ministering angel. The lady asked for, and obtained permission to use my pictures, and in March I was invited to the opening of a picture exhibition of the 19 churches at the Office de Tourisme in Buxy, during which the guide would be presented to the public.

Speeches, speeches, speeches, speeches....
The opening of an exhibition in this part of France consist most of the time of a number of interminable speeches, where each speaker extensively thanks all collaborators, their wives, their children, their servants, their neighbours and their pets. Just grin and bear it. After half an hour, in which my attention was waning, each one present received a free copy of the guide, at which it was aloso time for the obligatory glass of Crémant de Bourgogne and some snacks.

Guide touristique
The guide is now for sale in the town halls and the Offices de Tourisme in the area for the very reasonable price of € 5. And since I do not receive any royalties of this extravagant amount of money, I can, without moral dilemma, warmly recommend this tasteful booklet of 48 pages. It indeed contains a wealth of information on the subject, which is otherwise not at all or hardly available for those interested.
The above mentioned 29 churches are only a short distance away from La Tuilerie de Chazelle.

Saturday, 3 May 2014

Giving up so easily?

One of the things I have been looking for for a long time, and which I never found, is the Chapelle Saint-Nizier near or in Jalogny.
The only clue I had came from ”Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne”; the chapel or remains thereof were near a source named after Saint-Nizier. Since Jalogny is not such a big place we decided to give it a go.

Somewhere around here....
The church of Jalogny we had found during previous missions without any apparent problems. A certain chapelle Saint-Pierre (in ruins), located on top of a hill with the same name was already a bit trickier. The hill was indicated on the map, however, we did not find one trace of a chapel. Of course the remains could be hiding in the bushes on the top of the hill, or in someone’s back garden, or even under a newly built house.
In the village itself we found a source or fountain, but that one was called Fontaine des Chèvres. That seemed to be the end of our quest. Until I discovered, that the French internet site Geoportail, Google Earth’s small cousin, not only had aerial views or satellite pictures available, but also a wide range of different maps with a wide diversity of accuracy. One of the available options was the IGN map, not dissimilar to an ordnance survey map. On this IGN map, in between Jalogny and Vaux, there was a field with the name Saint-Nizier printed on it.

Aerial photograph of roughly the same area
Once, while we were in the vicinity, we met a farmer on a tractor. He knew about a source on the edge of the forest, not far from where we met him (see the red circle with no. 1 written in it in the bottom IGN map). We decided to drive in the direction the farmer had indicated, towards the circle with 4 written by it, turned right there, and turned right again at the next crossing (with 323 written by it), entering the forest. Underway we had seen nothing of interest, and due to the weather and the amount of water that had saturated the soil it was not feasible to enter the forest, and a drive along the edge of the forest revealed nothing at either side of the road.
When we got home I studied the map again, this time finding a blue dotted line along this road: water! Where there is smoke, there is fire, and where there is water there must be a source somewhere. During a trip with better weather and soil conditions we investigated this option, went into the forest, looked for the brook, but all to no avail (see the ellips with 2 written by it).

Cassini : Saint-Nizier is to the right of Vaux
In the meantime I had discovered that Geoportail could also produce the Cassini maps. These maps, made by the 18th C. French cartographer César-François Cassini, showed the Chapelle Saint-Nizier in all its glory, although not where we thought it should be. The chapel was located along a path used by pelgrims to Santiago de Compostella, a chapel not being unusual along those sort of tracks (see the red circle with 3 written in it in the bottom IGN map).
And again we drove to Jalogny / Vaux, and again in vain. But this blooming chapel should, sure as hell, be somewhere around there!

Blow up of IGN map
When looking at the map again I got another brainwave. Not being hampered by a good memory for places I "discovered", at the edge of the forest (see the red circle with 1 written by it) a spot with some buildings. One of them could well be a source, or even better, a chapel! When I mentioned this to my learned assistant, she dampened my enthusiasm by saying that that was the place where it all started. But, since you never know, we decided to drive back to this spot.
Needless to say that it was indeed the farm where we had started our investigations. However.... when we rounded the corner (red circle with no. 4) I had seen, from the corner of my eye, a cylindrical hut. When we drove back we found there a covered cylindrical structure, with a little door. When I peeked through the door I saw a pit, source or well, albeit dry. A bucket however "proved" that it once had been a pit. And that is the reason I officially close this investigation into the chapel of Saint-Nizier.

The source Saint-Nizier(?) - Jalogny
For those of our guests of La Tuilerie de Chazelle who are the first to locate the chapel Saint-Pierre, or even better, the correct location of the chapel Saint-Nizier, we have a bottle of wine in the fridge as a reward for their effort!

Saturday, 19 April 2014

What’s in a name?

When I was working on my interactive map with Romanesque churches in in Saône-et-Loire based on “Le site sur l'Art Roman en Bourgogne” I stumbled upon Loisy, a village in the Bresse, which should have a Romanesque house.

Château - Loisy
With the help of various maps it is often not too difficult to find a church, but a house somewhere in a village is something different. The driving force behind the earlier mentioned site, van Boxtel, told me that Loisy was a bit more complicated than it seemed. Loisy was the site where several Romanesque statuettes from the motte féodale were found. The statues themselves had been transported to various museums. He could however quite accurately tell me where this motte could be found; near the château in the middle of the village.
Not at all hampered by being modest about my language skills, I assumed that a motte was the same as a moat in English, something that sounded quite plausible given the location of this motte near a castle. A dictionary should have prevented me from drawing this conclusion, but why on earth would one consult a dictionary when one already knows the “answer”?

"Moat" - Loisy
A few days ago we were on another church hunt in the Bresse when we visited Loisy. In the centre of the village we easily found the castle, and a rather shallow ditch could pass, with a bit of fantasy, for the remains of a moat. The only thing that did not really fit in with this interpretation was the fact that van Boxtel almost always, if not always, gives the exact crime scene. And the statues in the moat could have come from anywhere. My burning question now became: where did these statues originally come from? From the chapel that belonged to the castle, or from an old church that stood there once? The answer came quickly. A motte féodale was a motte-and-bailey castle, built on top of an often artificially built hill. Arundel Castle in England is a good example of such a castle. The statues hence came from the original castle, of which nothing remained but the hill on which the remains of the more modern castle still can be found.
The next items on the list to be investigated are the statues, hidden somewhere in the museums of Romenay and Mâcon!

Remains of the castle - Loisy
Guests of La Tuilerie de Chazelle can find more in the Bresse but no longer existing buildings; Louhans for example boasts on Monday mornings a very interesting, big market, where one can, next to vegetables, food, clothing etc. also find and buy fowl and small animals.

Saturday, 5 April 2014

Breaking and entering

Have you ever tried to open a locked door, then discovering that you had forgotten the key?

Supper at Emmaus - Saint-Julien in Laizy
Depending on the type of door this does not always involve calling a locksmith. With double doors, where one part is bolted with a vertical pin falling into a hole in the floor, whilst the other part is then locked with a key, one can be lucky. Sometimes (but certainly not always!) somebody has forgotten to lower the pin, and in that case it is possible , by pushing gently but firmly against both door parts, to force the catch in the first door out of its hole in the second. If that works, both doors swing open simultaneously.

Capital - Saint-Julien in Laizy
This knowledge was put to good use when I wanted to visit the church in Laizy in the Morvan. The door was locked, but there was sufficient movement in both door panels. After trying and pushing a bit, I pushed a bit harder, and with a pang both doors swung open and I could go inside.
Of course this can and should be classified as breaking and entering, even though not with the intention to steal something. But some churches contain valuables, and of course there could be an alarm attached to the door, or simply, a neighbour could have warned the police. And how do you explain in French that the door opened itself spontaneously when you just leant against it?

Capital - Saint-Julien in Laizy
In view of the above I decided to quickly take the pictures I had come for and after that disappear on the double. I could not close the door properly, but for a casual passer-by it looked as if the door was at least closed.
The interior of the church was more than worth the effort. I have seen quite a few churches in that part of the woods, but Laizy is certainly a pearl in the crown of the Morvan churches.
The moral of this story? Always try whether there is any movement in a door. It will not be the first time that one of us thought that a door was closed, while in reality it was just sticking.

Arcatures - Saint-Julien in Laizy
For a complete series about this successful break-in, click here.

A day-trip to Autun from La Tuilerie de Chazelle is not complete without trying the door of the church in Laizy!