Photo : Havang(nl) / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
Blesle
The existence and development of the village depended until the Revolution on a Benedictine nuns' abbey, founded around the middle of the ninth century. In the eleventh century, the barons of Mercœur built a fortress of which only the keep remains today, and it was in the twelfth century that Blesle grew and surrounded itself with ramparts.
A walk along the streets lets you admire old half-timbered houses, with very fine carved doors. You must see the bell tower of Saint-Martin, the only vestige of a church destroyed in 1793, and visit the church of Saint-Pierre. This was the nuns' abbey, a building of early Romanesque date whose interior has been remodelled: there you can discover the very fine polychrome wood of a twelfth-century Virgin in Majesty. In the nearby surroundings of the village, nature lovers will find many walks and trout rivers.
