Nevers centres around place Carnot, close to the fifteenth-century Palais Ducal, former home of the dukes of Nevers, with octagonal turrets and an elegant central tower decorated with sculptures illustrating the family history of the first duke, François de Clèves, in the mid-seventeenth century. The building now houses an annexe of the law courts. Nearby, opposite the Hôtel de Ville, the Cathédrale de St-Cyr reveals a sort of wall display of French architectural styles from the tenth to the sixteenth centuries; it even manages to have two opposite apses, one Gothic, the other Romanesque. But more interesting and aesthetically satisfying is the late eleventh-century church of St-Étienne, on the east side of the town centre. Behind its plain exterior lies one of the prototype pilgrim churches, with galleries above the aisles, ambulatory and three radiating chapels around the apse.From the station, avenue de-Gaulle leads to place Carnot, where you take a left turn for the Parc Roger-Salengro, which has some unexpected sculptures – look out for Les Sangliers (wild boar). The north side of the park edges onto the convent of St-Gildard, where Bernadette of Lourdes ended her days. Her embalmed body is displayed in a glass-fronted shrine (daily: April–Oct 7am–12.30pm & 1.30–7.30pm; Nov–March 7.30am–noon & 2–7pm) in the convent chapel. A short walk away is the modern church of Ste-Bernadette du Banlay, built in 1966 in the bunker-like architectural style known as fonction oblique. Crossing to the other side of avenue de-Gaulle, five minutes' walk from the station by place Mossé and the bridge over the Loire, you pass a section of the old town walls and the Tour Goguin, partly dating back to the eleventh century. If you turn in here to the right you come to the Porte de Croux, a cream stone tower with intact machicolations and a steep tiled roof like those of its surrounding buildings; inside, there's a small local archeology museum (March–Nov Mon 3–6pm; €2), displaying mainly Greek and Roman statuary. Nearby rue du 14-Juillet has a number of faïencerie shops where you can see the pieces being painted by hand. To your right again you get back to the oldest quarter of town around the cathedral – rue Morlon and rue de la Cathédrale – with its dilapidated half-timbered houses, alleys and stairs descending to the river. To the north of the ducal palace on the way out of town towards Orléans, Porte de Paris, a triumphal arch, straddles rue des Ardilliers. It commemorates one of Europe's major conflicts, the battle of Fontenoy, fought out between Charlemagne's sons in 841 AD. The stakes were Charlemagne's empire, and the outcome the division of his lands east and west of the Rhine, which formed the basis of modern France and Germany.
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