Clermont-Ferrand Audio Tours

Clermont-Ferrand is unlike any other French city in its appearance, because much of the old town is built from dark Volvic stone, the dark grey volcanic lava quarried from the Auvergne's chain of dormant volcanoes. The cathedral of Notre-Dame de l'Assomption, completed in the 13th and 14th centuries, is a Gothic masterpiece in this same sombre black stone, and its twin spires are visible from across the surrounding plain. Standing in the old town's streets, surrounded by this dark masonry under a clear sky, gives Clermont-Ferrand a seriousness of character that seems appropriate for a city whose hinterland is a landscape of ancient volcanic cones.

The Michelin tyre company was founded in Clermont-Ferrand by Edouard and Andre Michelin in 1889, and the company's headquarters remain here, giving the city a manufacturing weight that many French cities of similar size lack.

The Puy de Dome, a perfectly shaped extinct volcano 1,465 metres high, rises just west of the city and is visible from everywhere in Clermont; a rack railway takes visitors to the summit where a Roman temple to Mercury once stood. The region was also the homeland of Vercingetorix, the Gallic chieftain who organised resistance to Julius Caesar's invasion in 52 BC, and his dramatic statue stands in the heart of the old town.