Basilique de la Visitation

Hilltop basilica with the tombs of Saint Francis de Sales and Saint Jane de Chantal

The Basilique de la Visitation crowns the wooded hill of the Crêt du Maure on the southern edge of the city, a twentieth-century building (consecrated 1949) that looks much older — heavy round-arched neo-Romanesque, in the manner of a great Cluniac abbey shrunk to parish scale. Inside lie the relics of Saint Francis de Sales (d. 1622) and Saint Jane de Chantal (d. 1641), the co-founders of the Order of the Visitation.

The basilica is worth the climb (about thirty minutes from the town centre, or a steep five-minute drive) as much for the view as for the building — the parvis in front gives one of the best panoramas of Annecy and the lake. The interior is open daily and surprisingly busy with pilgrims year-round.

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