LANGRES, 35km south of Chaumont and just as spectacularly situated above the Marne, suffered far less war damage and retains its encirclement of gateways, towers and ramparts. If you want to sleep in a Langres hotel, have a look at this site. Walking this circuit, which gives views east to the hills of Alsace and southwest across the Plateau de Langres, is the best thing to do if you're just stopping for an hour or so. Don't miss the St-Ferjeux tower with its beautiful metal sculpture Air and Dreams. Wandering inside the walls is also rewarding – Renaissance houses and narrow streets give the feel of a place time has left behind, swathed in the mists of south Champagne. Langres was home to the eighteenth-century Enlightenment philosopher Diderot for the first sixteen years of his life, and people like to make the point that, if he were to return to Langres today, he'd have no trouble finding his way around.The Musée du Breuil de St-Germain, in one of the best of the town's sixteenth-century mansions, at 2 rue Chambrûlard is unfortunately closed as the building is no longer safe and is awaiting funds before restoration work can begin. However, part of the museum's collection can be visited in the Musée d'Art et Histoire on place du Centenaire, near the cathedral (daily: April–Oct 10am–noon & 2–6pm; Nov–March 10am–noon & 2–5pm; €3.20). Head to level 1 of the new wing for the section devoted to Diderot, with his encyclopedias and various other first editions of his works, plus a portrait by Van Loos. Of the museum's own collection, the first part is devoted mainly to local archeology, with a rich Gallo-Roman section, but the highlight is the superbly restored Romanesque chapel of St Didier, incorporated into the old wing of the museum and containing a fourteenth-century painted ivory Annunciation. Sets of dining knives, a craft for which this area was famous for several centuries, are also on display along with other decorative arts. Local faïence – glazed terracotta – is featured, though these nicely crafted pieces are upstaged by the sixteenth-century tiles from Rouen in one of the nave chapels of the Cathédrale St-Mammès. This grey-stone edifice has not been improved by the eighteenth-century addition of a new facade, but there's an amusing sixteenth-century relief of the Raising of Lazarus, in which the apostles watch, totally blasé, while the locals look like kids at a good horror movie.
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