Vézelay rises from the top of a hill in the northern Morvan, a long street of pale stone houses ending in a great Romanesque basilica, and from far across the countryside it looks like a ship riding on a green sea. The Basilica of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine was built to house relics said to be those of Mary Magdalene, brought here in the ninth century, and it became one of the great pilgrimage sites of medieval Europe. It is also the start of one of the main French routes to Santiago de Compostela, and pilgrims still set out from its doors, shells on their backpacks.
The history is formidable. In 1146, Bernard of Clairvaux preached the Second Crusade on this hillside before a huge crowd, and in 1190, Richard the Lionheart and Philip Augustus met here to launch the Third. The basilica's greatest treasure is its carved capitals, close to a hundred of them in the nave, showing scenes from the Bible and from daily life with vivid, sometimes humorous detail. On the summer solstice, a line of sunlit patches runs down the centre of the nave in perfect alignment, a feature that draws visitors every year. UNESCO listed the hill in 1979.
The hill is the reason for the stop, but the landscape below is just as good. The valley of the river Cure runs between wooded slopes, and the roads are small, quiet and full of gentle curves. The climb up to the village itself is steep and cobbled in the final stretch, and cars are restricted, so leave the bike in the car park below the hill and walk up the main street, which takes ten minutes. Fuel is not available in the village, and the nearest larger town is Avallon, about twelve kilometres away, which has stations and supermarkets.
Early morning and evening are the best times, when the day-trippers have gone and the light turns the stone gold. A glass of Bourgogne Vézelay, a local white wine, goes well at a table near the basilica, and from the terrace behind it you can look out over a wide sweep of countryside, field upon field, wood after wood, rolling into the haze.