Troyes

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Overview

In polls of France's most romantic towns, Troyes invariably makes the grade – and with good reason. Its astonishingly intact, ludicrously pretty historic centre wings you back to the Middle Ages, with its warren of cobbled streets, fine ensemble of half-timbered houses in pastel hues, once home to wealthy textile merchants, and uplifting Gothic churches. Often overlooked, it’s one of the best places to get a sense of what Europe looked like back when Molière was penning his finest plays and the Three Musketeers were swashbuckling.

Attractions

Must-see attractions

16th-Century Troyes

Troyes

Half-timbered houses – some with lurching walls and floors that aren’t quite level – line many streets in the old city, rebuilt after a devastating fire…

Cathédrale St-Pierre et St-Paul

Troyes

All at once imposing and delicate with its filigree stonework, Troyes' cathedral is a stellar example of champenoise Gothic architecture. The flamboyant…

Musée d’Art Moderne

Troyes

Housed in a 16th- to 18th-century bishop’s palace, this place owes its existence to all those crocodile-logo shirts, whose global success allowed Lacoste…

Maison de l’Outil et de la Pensée Ouvrière

Troyes

Worn to a sensuous lustre by generations of skilled hands, the 11,000 hand tools on display here – each designed to perform a single, specialised task…

Hôtel de Vauluisant

Troyes

This haunted-looking, Renaissance-style mansion shelters a twinset of unique museums. The Musée de l’Art Champenois is a repository for the evocative…

Église Ste-Madeleine

Troyes

Troyes’ oldest and most interesting neighbourhood church has an early Gothic nave and transept and a Renaissance-style choir and tower. The highlights…

Ruelle des Chats

Troyes

Off rue Champeaux (between Nos 30 and 32), a stroll along tiny ruelle des Chats (Alley of the Cats), as dark and narrow as it was four centuries ago – the…

Basilique St-Urbain

Troyes

Begun in 1262 by the Troyes-born Pope Urban IV, whose father’s shoemaker shop once stood on this spot, this church is exuberantly Gothic both inside and…

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