Troyes

The most remarkable heritage than Middle Age artists bequeathed to the City of the Counts of Champagne. The stained glass finds its blooming at the 13rd century. The Masters Glassmakers joined forces to the Master builders Companions of Cathedrals. In Troyes, the more renowned artists founded a School (16e century). The last renowned artist is Linard Gontier (at the beginning of XVII century) before the emergence of the dynasties of the 19th century. The "glass Memory" perpetuated itself in our city. Although benefitting from technical improvements - leads of better quality, better welding, colour palette from about ten to near of 3000 - the method remained the same. Troyes is a true experimental laboratory "in situ" for the protection and the restoration of the old vitraux: some glass stained windows of the Cathedral are protected with the last security systems by computer. The Aube district is the richest in France with 9 000 square meters of windows, froom 13th to the 19th centuries, and Troyes is named by the specialists "Holy City of stained glass".

The cathedral Saint-Pierre and Saint-Paul is 114 meters long, 50 meters wide and 28.50 meters high under the arch, the Cathedral is characteristic of the gothic art. The 1500 m2 of windows from the 13th to the 19th century are a fantastic book of pictures. The front with its three blazing portals is the work of Martin Chambiges. The Tower Saint-Paul is unfinished since 1545. The Gate of the choir took out at the 19th century is now the entry of a room of the Metropolitan Museum of New York.

It contains an interesting Treasure with the Reliquary of Saint-Bernard of Clairvaux, a wonderful blanket of the 13th century made of in red silk embroidered of 53 medallion and a beautiful collection of mosans and limousins enamels (12th-13th centuries). Facing the Cathedral, the cellar Saint-Pierre is the former wine cellar of the chapter of the Cathedral. The canons stored there wine and wheat. The framework dates back from the 13th century and would be the oldest of civil buildings of France.

Saint-Urbain was the seat of the brotherhood of painters, glaziers and embroiderers (1645). The Urban IV street was called street Pipejai (ensign of a parrot), Bourserie street (bags and purses were made there) and Middle street (Vicus Medicus) that divided the city in two in 1260). Consecrated basilica in 1964, this is a pure jewel of the gothic art, related to the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris, and to the church Saint-Ouen of Rouen. Founded by Jacques Pantaléon who was born in Troyes in 1185, elected Pope in 1261 under the name of URBAIN IV, the basilica was built on the location of the cobbler shop of his father. Urban IV instituted the God-day fairy. Its relics were brought back from Pérugia (Italy) and deposited in the choir in 1935. Erected from a single throw from 1262 to 1286 it takes 6 centuries to build the nave in rock. Don't forget to look at the tympanum of the main door (13th century) that represents the last Judgement and the gargoyles, masterpieces of realistic bestiary. In the south side chapel, there is a charming "Virgin and the Grape" (Troyes School of the 16th century) of which the dress was formerly painted in bright colors. Windows of the 13th century.

Located in the former Bishops palace, the museum modern artbring together some 2000 masterpieces representing the big pictorial currents of the beginning of the 20th century, from Courbet (1850) to de Staël (1950) with a predilection for the fawn movement and expressionnism. Some evocative names: Vlaminck, Derain, Pond, Dufy, Modigliani, Rouault, Van Dongen, Delacroix, Daumier, Maillol, Picasso, Seurat...

Don't miss: a rare collection of glasswares, flasks, bowls, transparent vases engraved and cutted or in loafed, cracked glass from Maurice Marinot (Troyes glassmaker) and a beautiful collection of African Art, one of the most creative inspiration of the modern painting.

This hotel was built in about 1556 by Jean de Mauroy and transformed in orphanage, directed by the Brothers of the Redemption of Paris, called "Trinity of the Blue Children". The industry of the hosiery started here. The Companions of the Duty of the Tour de France restored it from 1969. A collection of 20 000 tools from the 17th to the 20 centuries, compose an hymn to the trades and crafts, with themes around rocks, the earth, iron, wood, leather. The library with 32 000 books concerning the trades, contains a Vitruve of 1572, and the Encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert in the first edition (35 volumes). Created under the impulse of the Father Paul Feller, (1913-1979), the House of the Tool became the biggest tools museum in the world, for the number and quality, but also for its unique scenography that transform it in a "Louvre of the worker".