The best running trails around Mondigny

The beautiful and strikingly modern town hall of the Mezières district. The adjacent forecourt was traffic-calmed a few years ago. There's also a drinking water fountain in the southwest corner of the square.

The original stained glass windows disappeared during bombings in 1815, 1870 and 1918. Today the basilica has an exceptional collection of contemporary stained glass windows, created between 1954 and 1979 by René Dürrbach, a friend of Picasso. Over 25 years, this artist has created a colossal set of 68 stained glass windows, unique in Europe, which honor the former 'Black Virgin' and the 'Virgin of Light' by referring to the universal symbols of colors, shapes and numbers, inspired through his collaboration with Henri Giriat. Since 2018, the former sacristy of the church has housed the Trésor d'art sacré des Ardennes, which contains around fifty masterpieces (ancient statues, precious relics, etc.) that were previously inaccessible to the public.

The construction of the Basilica of Notre-Dame-d'Espérance took more than a century between 1499 and 1615. The work was interrupted several times, for example during the siege of Mézières in 1521. The building is listed as a monument and is a masterpiece of the flamboyant gothic. However, the main portal and the tower break with the Gothic style and are built in Renaissance style, recognizable by the round arch and the coffers in the vault. The bell tower was built in the 19th century. The south portal is particularly opulent. King Charles IX and Elisabeth of Austria, grandniece of Charles V, entered through this door in 1570 for their wedding ceremony, even though the construction of the church had not yet been completed. The choice of Méeières had a strong symbolic value: reconciliation could be achieved through this strategic alliance.

King's Tower or Tour du Roy are fortifications built in 1544 under Francois I on the river Meuse. The tower was built by master builders Henri Roynel and Adam Souyn as part of the fortifications of Mezieres after the siege of the city in 1521. It has 6m thick walls with casements and firing embrasures. On the roof is a water tower built in 1855. It is listed as a historic monument.

The Hôtel de Ville de Mézières, was rebuilt after the bombings of November 1918 and construction was completed in 1930. The facade of the building contains elements of medieval, Renaissance and Baroque architecture. The interior of the Town Hall reveals a neo-Baroque decoration. In 1966, the municipality of Charleville-Mézières was created by the merger of several municipalities, making the Hôtel de Ville de Mézières the town hall of Charleville-Mézières. The town hall is located on Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, which was completely renovated and modernized between 2018 and 2020. It is an impressive building that reflects Charleville-Mézières' status as a department capital.

The Mezières town hall was built from 1927 to 1930 on an island cleared during the reconstruction of the town. The portal is made up of an Art Deco style ironwork grille.

Be sure to make time to admire the church treasure. Treasure of Sacred Art of the Ardennes The Treasury, inaugurated in July 2018 and the result of a long inventory and selection process, presents ancient statues, precious relics, gilded chalices, proven chasubles and paintings in a modern museum space in the Basilica of Notre-Dame d'Hope. These extraordinary objects offer a panorama of religious art from the 13th to the 19th century in the Ardennes, testifying to the know-how of craftsmen and popular devotion.

Construction of the basilica began in 1499 and lasted 120 years, reusing the foundations and certain elements of the primitive Romanesque church. It was established as a basilica by Pope Pius XII in 1946. In a late flamboyant Gothic style of great unity, this building amazes with its twenty-one cornerstone vaults, its beautiful stained glass windows covering an area of 1000 m² and its completely mechanical organ made in the classical style of Northern European.