The story of this place
Set among the volcanic plugs of the Auvergne, Le Puy-en-Velay has been a major pilgrimage centre for over a millennium and one of the four great starting points of the Camino to Santiago de Compostela; Bishop Godescalc set out from here on the pilgrimage as early as 951. Its cathedral, reached by a long stair, holds a venerated Black Madonna, and a Romanesque chapel improbably crowns the needle-thin Rocher d'Aiguilhe. Towering over the town is the 16-metre cast-iron statue of Notre-Dame de France, unveiled in 1860 and forged from 213 cannon captured by the French at the siege of Sevastopol in the Crimean War—faith literally cast from the instruments of war.