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Few French cities carry their medieval past as visibly as Bourges. Set in the geographical centre of France, in the Berry region of what is now the Cher department, it sits at a remove from the main tourist corridors, which has done it the quiet favour of preserving an extraordinary concentration of Gothic and late-medieval architecture in something close to its original state. The old town rises around a cathedral that is, by most architectural assessments, among the finest in Europe, and the streets below it have changed remarkably little in outline since the fifteenth century.

The Cathédrale Saint-Etienne is the obvious starting point for any understanding of Bourges. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it lacks the twin-tower west front that most visitors associate with French Gothic, presenting instead five portals of unequal height that give the facade an almost organic asymmetry. Inside, the nave is double-aisled without a transept, an unusual structural decision that creates a sense of unbroken height and light that architects still study. The medieval stained glass, much of it original, runs to extraordinary narrative complexity; the windows in the ambulatory alone could occupy a careful visitor for the better part of a morning.