Meaux stands on the River Marne in the Seine-et-Marne department, about fifty kilometers east of Paris — close enough for a comfortable day trip yet far enough to feel like genuine provincial France. The city's skyline is dominated by the Cathedral of Saint-Étienne, a Gothic masterpiece begun in the twelfth century and worked on for nearly four hundred years. Its west façade, with its trio of doorways and delicate stonework, rewards slow looking. The interior is particularly fine: soaring nave, superb medieval stained glass, and a serenity that is all the more striking for the building's size.
Meaux is inseparable from its cheese. Brie de Meaux, one of only two Brie varieties with AOC protection, has been made in this region since the eighth century and the city takes considerable pride in the fact. You can buy it from market stalls, specialist cheese shops, and even the Museum of Brie, which covers the history of the local dairy trade. The weekly Saturday market in the city center is an excellent place to pick up a properly ripe wheel along with charcuterie and vegetables from the surrounding farmland.
The old bishop's palace next to the cathedral now houses the Musée Bossuet, named for Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, the seventeenth-century Bishop of Meaux whose sermons were among the most admired of the age. The museum holds a good collection of paintings, sculptures, and historical objects relating to the city and its diocese. The formal gardens behind the palace, designed in the French style with clipped hedges and geometric beds, slope down toward the Marne and offer a tranquil corner well away from the tourist circuits. The riverside itself is pleasant for a walk, with the old water mills and medieval walls still partly intact along the bank.