The best traffic-free bike rides around Saint-Sigismond

The Notre-Dame de Poupry Church, located in the southern Eure-et-Loir region, in the heart of Beauce, is a 12th-century building, predominantly Romanesque in style, incorporating some Gothic elements such as ribbed vaults. Several phases of work have allowed the building to be maintained: work on the roof and framework, restoration of the exterior plasterwork, work in the sacristy, restoration and lighting of stained-glass windows discovered on the site. Today, further work is needed: masonry, carpentry, and restoration of the Stations of the Cross. A fundraising campaign is underway to fund the work. Your support is essential to the preservation of this precious heritage. With its saddleback bell tower, Notre-Dame de Poupry sits in a green setting and borders a large square in the center of this small Beauce village of about a hundred inhabitants. First named Saint Sulpice, it became Notre-Dame de Poupry. Modest in appearance, the single nave is enlarged by two chapels. The furnishings date mainly from the 18th century. There are baptismal fonts with two gadrooned basins. Only one painting is exhibited in this church: "Saint Cecilia and the Angel with the Music Sheet," painted by Jules Vignon in 1872. Like many others, this church was endowed with this painting after the revolutionary turmoil. It was also the subject of a last-chance operation during a previous restoration supported by the Heritage Foundation.

The Saint-André church burned down in the middle of the 19th century. The priest, forced to celebrate mass in a barn, opened a subscription in 1864, the church was rebuilt in 1865, according to the original plan, plus a transept. Bell tower-porch.

The Sainte Christine church represents a heritage of the rural and religious world characteristic of Beauce, the "breadbasket" of France since the Middle Ages. The Romanesque nave dates from the 12th century and was given a bell tower in the 18th century. The spire then peaked at 28 meters high, visible from afar from the surrounding countryside. In 1835, a hurricane damaged the roof of the bell tower. In 1893, lightning ignited the spire which burned almost entirely. The traces are still visible today. It would take almost 25 years for the church to regain its bell tower, reduced by half to 17 meters in height. The heritage to be restored is in line with the many religious buildings in this area such as the Saint Sébastien church in Baignolet, listed as a Historic Monument.

The Saint-Martin church dates from the 11th century. It was ravaged and burned by the Protestants, then restored at the end of the 16th century. It still retains remains of the Romanesque style, particularly in the nave which was rebuilt on the same plan, with stones and other debris from the fire.

After an unrealized project by the architect Plisson in 1861, church built in 1866, based on plans by Ricard, diocesan architect; with reuse of the previous 13th century building (bell tower)

The Moulin de Lignerolles is one of the last pivotal windmills in the Loiret department. Built in 1848, this wooden mill belonged to Louis-Joseph Soulas, famous painter and director of the Orléans School of Fine Arts. You can admire the restored mill and its ingenious mechanism, as well as the panoramic view of the plain. The mill is open to the public on Sundays from 2:30 p.m. to 6 p.m., and also hosts various events throughout the year, such as a flea market, concerts and exhibitions. Visiting the Moulin de Lignerolles is an excellent way to discover the heritage and charm of the Beauceron countryside.

We might believe it to be a classic viaduct when we pass under this construction but it is ultimately an 18km long track, built in 1968 to carry out experiments on monorail transport, the skytrain of the French engineer Jean Bertin. A prototype set a world speed record there in 1974, with 430.4 km/h on the clock. Due to a lack of investors or customers, the tests were stopped in 1977 and the track was decommissioned. Its dismantling being estimated at 13 million euros, the viaduct remained there, in the middle of the Beauceron countryside.

The Saint André church (13th-15th-16th centuries) In the 7th century, the Benedictine abbey of Bonneval created a priory-curate. Its existence is confirmed by a bull from Pope Gregory second half of the 16th century. In 1793 the church was desecrated and transformed into wine and spirits warehouses. In 1801, the church was returned to worship and changed diocese: from the diocese of Chartres, to which it belonged before the Revolution, it passed to the diocese of Orléans, notably for reasons of distance: Chartres is 48 km from Patay then that Orléans is only 27 km away. The church is 30 m long and 17 m wide. The oldest parts are located near the large porch (13th century). One of the pillars of the nave is decorated with a vestige of Danse Macabre from the mid-15th century. A small masonry door on the right communicated with the old priory, of which ruins remain to the south of the church. The choir dates from the 14th century; the apse wall was decorated with paintings at the end of the 19th century, the chapels were then redeveloped and equipped with new stained glass windows. The keystones of the large nave were made from casts taken from the figurines which adorn the Thesis Room of the University of Orléans, built in 1411. The bell tower, located to the north of the choir, would be an old watchtower. Its pinnacles and eight openings were made after the Wars of Religion. The four bells were melted in 1868. The largest was cracked by a Prussian shell in 1870 and was recast in 1871. Since that year, Ernestine (809 kg, 1 m 12 in diameter at the base, sounding the F), Gabrielle (550 kg, 0.981 m in diameter, sounding the ground), Anne (398 kg, 0.573 m in diameter) and Marie (222 kg, 0.724 m in diameter, sounding the C) give rhythm to the daily life of the small town of Patay, old Beauceron railway junction. On August 15, 1944, an ammunition train was blown up at Patay station. The station was blown up, except for the carriage shed, and all the windows in the town were shattered. Luckily, a providential storm limited the damage. The only two stained glass windows that survived the explosion are those on the right side aisle which date from 1930 and relate the communion of Joan of Arc in the Patay church in 1429. The church was listed as a Historic Monument in 1925 by decree of October 6, 1925.