Every design for Bourg-En-Bresse

At the western foot of the Jura, where the hedged farmland of Bresse meets the first slopes of the Revermont, Bourg-en-Bresse stands on the left bank of the Reyssouze, a modest tributary of the Saône. It is the prefecture of the Ain and the old capital of the province of Bresse.

What makes Bourg unusual is Brou. Margaret of Bourbon meant to found a monastery here but died before she could; her daughter-in-law, Margaret of Austria, built the church instead, in memory of her husband Philibert le Beau of Savoy. The Monastère Royal de Brou and its Église Saint-Nicolas-de-Tolentin de Brou are richly carved outside and filled with works of art within. Bourg itself was a free town, briefly the capital of the dukes of Savoy, and its citadel held out for six months against Henri IV before the town passed to France. The Co-cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-l'Annonciation pairs a Renaissance façade with Gothic bones and carved stalls.

Grow up here and the map becomes a set of familiar routes: out to Brou, along the Reyssouze, east towards the Revermont on a clear day.