Church of Our Lady

Look to your left for a towering flat stone facade, defined by three massive arched doorways at the base and rows of slender columns topped with projecting stone creatures. This is the Notre Dame Church of Dijon.

Now, Gothic architecture usually loves to show off its flying buttresses and sweeping curves, but the unknown architect who designed this in the twelve twenties did something completely different. Because space was tight in this crowded neighborhood, they built a flat screen facade that completely hides the shape of the church behind it.

Take a close look at those fifty-one stone creatures jutting out from the upper galleries. Check out your screen to see a closer view of these fascinating carvings... You might call them gargoyles, but technically they are chimeras, purely decorative statues that do not actually drain rainwater. And the ones you see today are not the originals.

The story of the first statues is a bit of a dark comedy. In the year twelve forty, a wealthy usurer, a moneylender who charged high interest, was walking across this very square to get married. Right as he passed below the church, a stone figure depicting a usurer suddenly broke loose and fell, killing him on the spot. His furious colleagues demanded the church remove all the decorative figures from the front. For over six hundred years, the facade was bare, until Parisian sculptors added the current monsters during restorations in the eighteen eighties.

Now, look up at the stump of the right tower. You will see a mechanical clock with iron figures. That is the Jacquemart. If you look at your app, you can see the whole mechanical family up close... In thirteen eighty-two, the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Bold, helped crush a rebellion in the Belgian city of Courtrai. To rub salt in the wound, he dismantled their prized mechanical clock, which featured an automaton, a mechanical figure that strikes a bell, and hauled it all the way back to Dijon as a trophy. Over the centuries, the city thoughtfully gave Jacquemart a mechanical wife, Jacqueline, and two mechanical children, so he would not have to strike the bells all alone.

If you walk around the north side of the building later, you will find a small stone owl carved into a chapel wall. For centuries, visitors have rubbed it with their left hand, the hand closest to the heart, to make a wish. Just make sure you do not look at the carved salamander nearby, or your wish will be canceled.

The church is open to visitors from eight in the morning to six in the evening Monday through Saturday, and from nine to six on Sundays.

Take all the time you need to admire this incredible facade. When you are ready to keep walking, we can move on to the next stop.