The gateway to Chablis wine country — a Gothic cathedral with rare medieval stained glass, Burgundy Canal, and the most famous appellation in white wine
Auxerre is the capital of the Yonne département in northern Burgundy — a small, beautifully preserved medieval city on the Yonne river with a Gothic cathedral that contains some of the finest early stained glass in France, and a position 10km from the Chablis appellation that makes it the natural base for exploring the most distinctive white wine in the world. The city itself is undervisited in relation to its quality: the old quarter above the river has Renaissance and medieval architecture largely intact, the Abbaye Saint-Germain (6th–12th c.) has Carolingian frescoes that are among the old…
Auxerre (Autessiodurum) was an important Gaulish town and later Roman capital of the Senones region. It became a major early Christian centre — Saint Germanus of Auxerre (378–448 CE), one of the most influential bishops of the Western Church, is buried here; his abbey became a major pilgrimage site. The diocese of Auxerre was one of the wealthiest in medieval France; the cathedral was built from the 13th through the 16th century and reflects the full arc of Gothic architecture. The Burgundy Canal (Canal de Bourgogne, completed 1832) linked the Yonne river to the Saône, making Auxerre a major…