Mont Saint-Romain

What you will see

From the top, the view sweeps over wooded hills and the villages of the Clunisois, and on the clearest days the Alps and even Mont Blanc appear on the horizon. The state forest around the summit mixes broadleaf trees and conifers and is crossed by walking paths. At the foot of the hill, the Grottes de Blanot, a chasm reaching more than 80 metres underground, open for guided visits in season. To the west the view reaches the Charolais hills and the Morvan, and walking and mountain-bike routes start from the summit. The caves open in the Mangette valley on the mountain's western flank, where the limestone meets its granite base. The guided visit lasts about 1 hour 15 minutes and follows a loop of some 650 steps down to 80 metres below the surface, at 11 to 13 °C, and a small cave nearby has yielded bones of bison, bear, hyena and wolf with a Middle Palaeolithic stone point, dated to between 130,000 and 115,000 years ago. In the village of Blanot, look for the 13th-century Cluniac priory, old wash-houses, stone-slab roofs, houses with galleries and Merovingian tombs.

History

The summit may have been a place of worship before Christianity, and a large fire was traditionally lit there. A chapel on the top was given to the abbey of Cluny in 927, and in the 12th century Abbot Peter the Venerable came here several times to rest. A few monks later lived there, then a hermit; the last buildings were sold in 1792. The viewing table was set up by the Touring Club de France in 1948.