France Guide
The Massif Central
The Basilique Notre-Dame-du-Port
Northeast of the cathedral, down the elegant old rue du Port, stands Clermont's other great church, the Romanesque Basilique Notre-Dame-du-Port – a century older than the cathedral and in almost total contrast both in style and substance, built from softer stone in pre-lava-working days and consequently corroding badly from exposure to Clermont's polluted air. For all that, it's a beautiful building in pure Auvergnat Romanesque style, featuring a Madonna and Child over the south door in the strangely stylized local form, both figures stiff and upright, the Child more like a dwarf than an infant. It was here in all probability that Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade in 1095 to a vast crowd who received his speech with shouts of Dios lo volt (Occitan for "God wills it"), which became the battle-cry of the crusaders.