Articles > Perfect Ten Limoges

1. Tram way

Founded as Augustoritum by the Romans, around 10 BC Limoges mushroomed across seven hills on the right bank of the River Vienne to become the capital of the leafy, cow-tracked Limousin department. Despite being set at the core of a grid of major roads leading from north to south and east to west, this central French city is surprisingly compact. A near-silent, non-polluting trolley-bus transport network inaugurated in is an ideal and ecologically -correct way of discovering museums, restaurants and shops tucked into a warren of plane tree planted alleys and pretty cobbled streets

2. Porcelain

Impressionist painter Pierre Auguste Renoir (who began his artistic career decorating porcelain) and Goscnny (the guy who created Asterix) were born here; literary giants Balzac and Molière both lived here for a while and British king Richard the Lionheart was killed by a crossbow bolt just south of Limoges in 1199. Even so, the city’s biggest claim to fame still remains its elegant chinaware.

Kaolin, the fine white clay used for making this royal china was first discovered just down the road from Limoges in the otherwise unremarkable village of Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche. This discovery in 1771 signalled the start of an industry which turned this hitherto isolated and impoverished town into a wealthy hot bed of ceramic focussed activity. For a century and a half Limoges porcelain sold like hot cakes all over the globe, but then changing tastes and changing times heralded by WWII sent the ceramics industry into decline and the famous china city slid back to being a genteel backwater once more.

The Musée National Adrien Dubouche, housed in an elegant building that was once the city’s lunatic asylum, is an ideal place to kick off your tour and learn more about the local chinaware. After watching an informative video tracing the fascinating and troubled history of the city’s fragile lucent stuff, you can walk from room to high-ceilinged room admiring one of Europe’s largest ceramics collections which spans two centuries of manufacture. Back out on the street look out for the Les Halles, the nearby Pavilion du Verdurier and the fountain all decorated with Limoges' famous ceramics, then . join a factory tour at Bernardaud porcelain factory at 27, avenue Albert Thomas and see how its done today.

If you want to get some of your own you’ll find plenty of shops, including Bernardaud, selling porcelain all over town, but if you want to hunt down a bargain make a beeline for the boulevard Louis-Blanc where the Morel Michel boutique stocks end-of-line samples, or buzz over to discount stores in the place des Jacobins and the rue de la Boucherie.

3. Enamel

Porcelain might be the word that springs to most people’s lips when they mention Limoges, but this versatile city is also famed for its distinctive enamels, easily recognisable by the motifs painted on a black, brown or dark blue background made here on and off since the middle ages. Despite a robbery in 1981 which dilapidated some of its best pieces The 17th-century Bishops' Palace (Palais de l'Évêché) houses one of worlds largest collections dating from the 12th Century until the present day, as well as five canvases signed by impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who was born here in 1841

Collectors with a sizeable budget will find plenty of good pieces on sale in the local antique shops. Buyers with more modest means should take a look at the modern enamels produced using those same age old techniques at Alan Grafeuils cluttered workshop in 17bvd louis blanc (www.emaux.com)

4. St Martial Abbey

After the death of Saint-Martial, who brought Christianity to the region during the third Century AD, Limoges became an important stop along the pilgrimage route to Santiago di Compostella. The large Romanesque St Martial abbey (entry how much give web) was built to house his relics. And you can go below ground for a spooky look at them bishops bones in The Crypt of Saint Martial (10th-century), including the tomb of the bishop who evangelised the city.

Now a renowned centre for spiritual and cultural activity, the abbey was the home of the St. Martial School, school of medieval music composition, whose most famous member was the 13th-century troubadour Bertran de Born.

5. Tunnels

The vast gardens of the Bishops palace sloping gently to the banks of river viene and planted with trees and shrubs from five continents. Beneath these elysian a 12-mile network tunnels, studded with Gothic arches and pillars hewn out of the granite, that snake under the 'upper' city. Take a guided tour (entry €6; give eb tourist foocie) through these subterranean passages that locals used them to store food, grain and wine when the marauding army of the Black Prince were stationed here in 1370 and listen out for the wails of lost souls said to haunt these narrow ave been.

6. Butchers Street

Right up the French Revolution, when bloodshed presumably became a different kettle of fish, eighty butchers traded in Limoges tiny rue de la Boucherie studded with half-timbered houses. The Butchers Museum proffers a fascinating snapshot of a butchers life in the days when offal was cast out into the street and cattle slept side by side with their owners. Set in one of those ancient butchers shops the museum has see the shop, an ice-store, former slaughter-room, attics being used for salting meats and drying skin, Cross the street to says a prayer for the slaughterers in the tiny cockeyed Chapel St-Aurelien built in 13th-century to honour the butchers' patron saint.

7. Chez Alphonse

As in olden days it was lined with butchers stores, these days rue de la Boucherie is awash with good restaurants. One of the best ist Chez Alphonse. Its moustachioed proprietor always features the main item being sold in the market that day as his main dish, stuffed tomatoes, fillet of sea bass (bar) and crème brulée. served, appropriately, on Limoges porcelain

8. St Etienne Cathedral

Crososgn voer from across the eight-arched Pont St Etienne, built in 1210 to provide access to the Cité, st Etienne cathedral (entry we) .A landmark for miles around despite spire spire which once crowned the summit was destroyed by lightning in 1571, this massive pillared Gothic edifice designed in 1272 by Jean Deschamps, the architect of Toulouse cathedrals built on th e site of a Roman temple took 600 years to complete. Lookout for north transept is totally overblown with elongated arches, clusters of pinnacles and ornate windows and gallery ad enjoy dazzling medieval light-show when the sun streams through the huge stained glass windows.

9. Castle of Chalucet

The remains of the 12th-century Castle of Chalucet, 10 km outside the city. During the Hundred Years War it was a base of the bands of pillagers which ravaged the country

10. Oradour sur Glane

In June 1944, just a few days after D-Day, the Nazis punished villages for its aid to resistance fighters by massacring 642 villagers, including 205 children. Limoges souvenir of atrocities shows the burnt-out ruins, the cemetery and eerie streets left just as they were on that day at Oradour-sur-Glane and the the adjoining Musée de la Résistance. Makes a heart-rending but compelling visit.

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