Bourges, France - visited July 11, 2012

Bourges, a city with a population of around 70,000, is in Centre region on the Yèvre river. It is the capital of the Cher department. A great walkabout city - off the beaten track, lots of locals and no intense crowds.
Following the siege of Avaricum, the commune name in Roman times, Julius Caesar's forces destroyed the city and killed all but 800 of its inhabitants in 52 BCE. A Christian center had developed on this site by the 3rd century when Saint Ursin is believed to have been the first bishop of the city of Bourges. In the 4th century a defensive stone wall, strengthened by some 50 towers and pierced by four gateways, was built and some vestiges of this can be seen along the Promenade des Remparts and at the foot of Jacques Coeur's Palace. The city, which has a walled market that opens once a week, actually served briefly as the capital of France during the "Hundred Years War".
The Gothic Cathedral of Saint Etienne, begun at the end of the twelfth century, is listed as a World Heritage Site and is second only to Paris' Nôtre-Dame cathedral in size. It contains some of France's best stained-glass windows representing Christ at the Last Judgement and the Apocalypse among others. The structure is essentially as it was when it was completed in the late 13th century, although many elements have been replaced over the centuries.
By 1487, Bourges boasted 15,000 inhabitants despite outbreaks of plague and general paucity but, in that year, a disasterous fire consumed more than a third of the city and precipitated a rapid decline. In 1562 the War of Religion reached Bourges with much pillaging by the Protestants leading to the flight of many of its bourgeois and intellectual elite. The Revolution further diminished the city's allure and it wasn't until 1851 when the railroad station was built that redevelopment began.
In 1860 Bourges was selected as the armament manufacturing center for France and by 1866 the population had doubled to 30,000 and peaked at 100,000 briefly during WWI. Since WWII, most housing expansion has been in the form of apartment blocks north of the city, leaving the old town fairly intact. Lots of things to see here.
And, as a total bonus, when we left town to get back to the canp ground, we stumbled across a French Carnival. See the Midway delights here!