The Cathédrale Saint-Front rises above the old town with a cluster of five white domes that owe more to Constantinople than to the French countryside. The original abbey church was built in the 11th and 12th centuries on a Greek-cross plan modelled on St Mark's in Venice, making this one of the few genuinely Byzantine churches in France.
The interior is more austere than the dramatic exterior suggests — long sight-lines under the domes, an oversized 17th-century altarpiece, and a Romanesque cloister that opens off the south side. The building was rebuilt almost from the foundations up by Paul Abadie in the 1850s and 1860s, who replaced damaged stonework with sharp new limestone and added the lantern turrets that crown each dome. The result is striking from outside, especially from the river or from the place de la Clautre at the market.