The Grand Escalier and the sanctuary terraces

From the single street of the village, the Grand Escalier climbs 216 steps to the parvis of the sanctuary — a narrow shelf halfway up the cliff where seven chapels are built into and against the rock, including the little chapel of Notre-Dame with its Black Madonna and the Romanesque basilica of Saint-Sauveur. Pilgrims have gone up these steps on their knees for eight centuries and some still do.

Every landing is a frame. Turn around and the canyon opens behind you with the roofs of the village below; look up and the stair disappears between rock and buttress. The parvis itself is enclosed and shaded, with warm reflected light off the cliff — good for faces at almost any hour, which is unusual here.

This is a working place of worship, not a monument. Dress quietly, services and pilgrim groups take priority, silence inside the chapels, and anything beyond a couple walking through — posed portraits, a dress change, lights, a tripod — should be cleared with the sanctuary in advance rather than attempted on the day.

A lift runs from the village to the sanctuary level and a second one continues to the château, which matters if anyone in the group cannot manage the stairs. Go in the first hour after opening: by late morning in season the staircase is a slow single file both ways.