One of the greatest pleasures of living in the center of France, for us, was the Romanesque architecture we found everywhere in the region. 

This week's picture features the Eglise Saint-Austremoine in Issoire -- one of the five "major" basilicas in this style in the Auvergne.  (The others are Notre Dame du Port in Clermont-Ferrand, the basilica of Notre Dame in Orcines, the beautiful little church in the "high" section of St Nectaire, and the church in St Saturnin.) 

Built around 1130 C.E., it's named for the man who was Clermont's first bishop back in the 3rd century C.E.  And like all of these exquisite structures, the Eglise Saint-Austremoine is beautiful for the incredibly perfect order in the way the rows of arches are laid out, in the polychromatic paintings of the interior, and in the intricate brickwork of the "chevet"(the rounded end of the building behind the altar).