Limoges

Limoges is special for a number of reasons. It has, for a start, quite the most beautiful Art Nouveau railway station in France, the pendentives of whose dome are adorned with figures representing the regions its railway serves. The streets of Limoges are home to a fleet of trolley-buses, an ecologically sound method of transport taking advantage of the hydro-electric resources of the Limousin. Limoges still produces, in vast quantities, its own most famous artefacts in porcelain and enamel. The enamel-workers were organised well before the sixth century, but it was the discovery of a bed of china clay in 1770 which permitted the foundation of a porcelain industry to rival Sèvres and Meissen. The old bridges of Limoges (Pont Saint-Martial right) are the pedestrianised centres of an ancient city. A city of mystery and legend, with an underworld all of its own; tunnels, older than the Romans, from hilltop to riverside; a whole subterranean town of several storeys, and an inexplicable spherical underground temple are among its many ancient remains.