Photo : Paolo Carnassale / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Alençon
A historic crossroads between Normandy, the Maine and the Perche, Alençon owes its international fame to Alençon point, an extremely fine needle lace inscribed on UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list, a single piece sometimes taking several years to make.
The Maison d'Ozé, an elegant turreted medieval house where, according to local tradition, the writer Marguerite de Navarre was born, now houses the tourist office in a French formal garden. The Basilica of Notre-Dame, whose richly carved Flamboyant Gothic porch is surprisingly deep, and the castle of the dukes, later converted into a prison, complete the heritage of this town, also marked by its industrial past in printing and lace making.
