Autun is a French commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the
Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, located in the Morvan regional
natural park.
Sub-prefecture of Saône-et-Loire since 1790,
the city had 13,290 inhabitants (Autunois and Autunoises) in the
2017 census, at the heart of an intercommunal grouping together
around 40,000 inhabitants.
Founded by the Romans as
Augustodunum, sister and emulator of Rome at the beginning of the
reign of Emperor Augustus, Gallo-Roman capital of the Aedui to
replace Bibracte, bishopric since Antiquity, Autun was until the end
of the fifteenth century a prosperous city and an influential
cultural center, despite looting and invasions. Its geographic
isolation and increasing competition from Dijon, Chalon-sur-Saône
and later Le Creusot contributed to its decline over the following
centuries. Difficult to convert to industry in the nineteenth
century (exploitation of oil shale and fluorite), Autun experienced
a revival in the twentieth century which made it the headquarters of
several national companies (Dim, Nexans) and one of the six French
military high schools. The city retains a rich heritage of its
ancient and medieval past which also makes it an important tourist
site in the heart of Burgundy.
1. Cathédrale Saint-Lazare (Saint Lazarus Cathedral)
This is
Autun’s crowning glory and one of the finest examples of Burgundian
Romanesque architecture in France. Construction began around 1120 under
Bishop Étienne de Bâgé and was largely completed by the mid-12th
century. It was built to house relics of Saint Lazarus (the biblical
figure raised from the dead), attracting pilgrims on the route to
Santiago de Compostela.
Key features:
West Tympanum (Last
Judgment): The masterpiece sculpted by Gislebertus (signed below the
feet of Christ). It depicts Christ in Majesty judging souls, with the
saved on the left and the damned on the right. The detailed, expressive
figures—including demons, angels, and resurrected souls—are among the
most important surviving examples of Romanesque sculpture.
Slender nave with high vaults, beautifully carved historiated capitals
(depicting biblical scenes), and later Gothic additions like flying
buttresses and a spire after a 15th-century fire.
The cathedral
dominates the skyline and offers wonderful views over the town and
surrounding countryside.
Nearby is the Musée Rolin, which houses
additional sculptures by Gislebertus (such as The Temptation of Eve) and
Roman artifacts.
2. Roman Theatre (Théâtre Romain d'Autun)
Built around 70–80 AD on a natural hillside, this was one of the largest
theatres in the Roman Empire (second only to some in Rome itself), with
a diameter of about 148 meters and capacity for up to 20,000 spectators.
It hosted dramatic performances, gladiatorial contests, and public
events. Though partially ruined, the semi-circular seating tiers
(cavea), stage area, and overall scale remain impressive. It provides
panoramic views over the town and the Plan d’Eau du Vallon (a
lake/reservoir).
3. Temple of Janus (Temple de Janus)
A
striking Gallo-Roman temple from the 1st–2nd century AD, located just
outside the old city center. Only two massive walls remain standing
(originally it was a square cella with four walls). It rises about 24
meters high and features large arched openings.
Dedicated likely to a
local Celtic deity equated with the Roman god Janus (god of beginnings
and transitions), it exemplifies the blending of Roman and Gallic
religious traditions. Its isolated, imposing ruins in a rural setting
make it photogenic and atmospheric.
4. Roman City Gates: Porte
Saint-André and Porte d’Arroux
Autun had four monumental gates; two
survive in excellent condition and are among the best-preserved Roman
gates in France.
Porte Saint-André (eastern gate): Features two
large arches for vehicles and smaller side passages for pedestrians,
topped by a gallery of 10 arcades. One flanking tower remains. It
incorporates medieval modifications (a church was once inside a tower).
Porte d’Arroux (northern gate): Similar design with large arches and
a upper level that once had columns and arcades. It still serves as a
functional road entrance.
5. Roman Ramparts and Other Structures
Over 4–6 km of the original ~6 km Roman walls (late 1st century BC/early
1st century AD) survive, with towers and bastions. The best stretches
are near the Tour des Ursulines.
Pyramide de Couhard: A 1st–2nd
century AD funerary monument (likely a pyramid atop a base) in a
necropolis area south of the city. It offers good views.
Best Time to Visit
Ideal periods: April–June and
September–October. These months offer pleasant weather for walking,
fewer crowds, and beautiful spring blooms or autumn colors in the
surrounding hills and forests.
Summer (July–August): Warm/hot and
good for outdoor events (like spectacles at the Roman theatre), but can
be busy and hot.
Winter: Quieter and potentially snowy, suitable for
cozy indoor sights, but some outdoor ruins are less appealing and
services may be limited.
Autun is not overrun with tourists
year-round, so it's flexible.
How to Get There
By Train
(recommended): The nearest TGV station is Le Creusot-Montceau-Montchanin
(about 30 minutes by bus or taxi from Autun).
From Paris: ~1h15 to Le
Creusot + transfer → total ~2–4 hours.
From Lyon: ~45 minutes to Le
Creusot + transfer.
By Car: Easy access via A6 motorway. About
3–3.5 hours from Paris, 1.5 hours from Lyon, and under 1 hour from
Beaune or Chalon-sur-Saône. Parking is available, though the historic
center is best explored on foot.
By Bus: Connections from nearby
towns and TGV stations (e.g., line 706).
Airports: Fly into Paris
CDG/Orly or Lyon Saint-Exupéry, then take TGV + bus/taxi.
Tip:
Renting a car is useful if you want to explore the Morvan countryside,
nearby châteaux, or Bibracte (ancient Celtic site on Mont-Beuvray).
Top Attractions and Things to Do
Autun’s compact historic center
is very walkable. Focus on its dual Roman and medieval heritage.
Cathédrale Saint-Lazare (St. Lazarus Cathedral)
A masterpiece of
Romanesque art (12th century) with one of the most famous tympanums in
France — the Last Judgment by sculptor Gislebertus. Admire the detailed
capitals (some originals in the chapter house museum), soaring vaults,
and stained glass. It’s open daily (generally 8 AM–7 PM; extended in
summer). Don’t miss the view from the square outside.
Roman Ruins
(some of the best-preserved north of the Mediterranean):
Roman
Theatre: Large amphitheater with panoramic views over the valley and a
modern lake. Hosts summer spectacles with lights, fireworks, and
performances.
Porte d’Arroux and Porte Saint-André: Impressive
ancient city gates.
Temple of Janus: A rare, mysterious Gallo-Roman
temple.
Pierre de Couhard (Couhard Pyramid): A funerary monument.
Remnants of Roman ramparts (originally ~6 km long) still visible.
Musée Rolin: Housed in a 15th-century mansion. Features Roman
artifacts, medieval sculptures (including Gislebertus’ Temptation of
Eve), and local history. A great complement to the cathedral.
Wander
the Old Town: Narrow streets, half-timbered houses, and the upper town
offer photogenic views. Climb to viewpoints like the Croix de la
Libération for panoramas.
Nature and Outdoors (Morvan Gateway):
Hike or cycle in the Morvan Regional Natural Park (forests, lakes,
granite formations).
Plan d’eau du Vallon for a relaxed green space.
Mountain biking or the “Grande Traversée du Massif Central” trails.
Visiting Tip: Start at the Tourist Office (Office de Tourisme
d’Autun et du Grand Autunois Morvan) for maps, guided tours (including
bus tours of Roman sites), and current events. They offer walking tours
and suggestions tailored to your interests.
Practical Visiting
Tips
Duration: 1–2 full days for the town + extra time for
surroundings. It’s a perfect base for 3–5 nights.
Getting Around:
Mostly on foot. Wear comfortable shoes — there are hills and
cobblestones. Bikes or e-bikes are great for the area.
Accessibility:
Some Roman sites and parts of the old town involve slopes/stairs. The
cathedral is mostly accessible.
Guided Experiences: Look for
Gallo-Roman monument tours or château circuits. Summer “Concerts à la
Carte” combine dining on terraces with free live music.
Photography:
Golden hour at the Roman theatre for sunrise/sunset is magical. The
cathedral tympanum is best in good light.
Crowds & Etiquette: Quiet
compared to tourist hotspots. Respect church services and be mindful in
residential areas.
Food and Drink
Burgundy is gastronomic
heaven. Try:
Local wines (Côte Chalonnaise or nearby appellations).
Burgundy classics: escargots, boeuf bourguignon, coq au vin, cheeses
(Époisses), and mustard.
Recommended spots: La Trattoria (Italian
with good value), Le Cathédral, and other terrace restaurants.
Markets and local producers offer fresh regional products. Autun is
close enough to Beaune for wine tasting day trips.
Accommodations
Hotels: ibis Autun (practical), or more charming independents in the
historic center.
B&Bs/Guesthouses: Moulin Renaudiots or similar for a
cozy stay. Book ahead in peak season (harvest/summer).
Options range
from budget to luxury; many have free parking and WiFi.
Day Trips
from Autun
Bibracte & Mont-Beuvray (Celtic archaeological site).
Nearby châteaux and Buddhist temple (in the area).
Morvan lakes and
forests for nature escapes.
Beaune for wine tourism.
Autun is a large town of history which has preserved many ancient
or medieval traces. The city was one of the Roman Christian
capitals.
Augustodunum, Roman city
It was under the reign
of the Roman Emperor Augustus (-27/14) that the city of Autun was
founded: its ancient name, Augustodunum, means the fortress of
Augustus. Augustus had the will to create a great city in Gaul which
would show the Roman power. Augustodunum was therefore endowed with
monuments which still make it famous today.
The city is
quickly equipping:
an enclosure about 6 km long and enclosing an
area of 200 ha, with many towers. It was pierced by four doors -
two of which, the doors of Saint-André and Arroux, remain - at the
ends of the two main streets which intersected at right angles
(cardo maximus and decumanus maximus);
a Roman theater that can
hold up to 20,000 people, the largest in capacity in the western
part of the Roman Empire;
an amphitheater which has now
disappeared, located next to the theater;
the so-called “Janus”
temple, outside the ramparts. If this temple was wrongly attributed
to the Roman deity Janus, archaeologists do not know which deity was
worshiped there. We can read on an explanatory plaque near the
temple of Janus:
“To the north-west of the ancient city, on the
right bank of the Arroux, was developing a district of which the
only visible vestige, the so-called“ Janus ”temple emphasizes its
religious vocation. […] The particular form of this temple, known as
fanum, is in the Gallic tradition although its construction
technique, dating from the 1st century AD is Roman. The name of
Janus was wrongly associated with it in the sixteenth century by the
historian Pierre de Saint-Julien de Balleure, who thus interpreted
the name of the sector where it stands: La Genetoye. This term
actually designates a place where broom grows. The deity worshiped
here remains totally unknown. […] "
In 1976, following the
great drought, the aerial prospecting of René Goguey finally allowed
after 13 years to highlight a whole set including a large theater
150 meters north-west of the temple of Janus, whose surveys of 1977
revealed curved and radiating walls of the cavea built on the walls
of an important previous building. Its diameter of 120 meters
exceeding the semi-circle, it belongs to the series of Gallo-Roman
theaters associated with temples.
the pyramid of Couhard,
which stands near an ancient necropolis, the “Field of the Urns”, is
said to be the burial place of the Aeduan druid Diviciacos, friend
of Cicero and Caesar, or even of an ancient vergobret. However, its
exact destination, tomb or cenotaph has given rise to questions.
The creation of Autun attracted the surrounding populations and in
particular the inhabitants of Bibracte, the Aeduan oppidum, which
gradually fell into oblivion.
Autun was famous for its school
of rhetoric, the first to bring letters to Trier were the
panegyrists, rhetoric teachers from the schools of Autun, Bordeaux,
Rome and even Trier. Among the speeches written from 197 to 312,
five were composed in Autun. Already in 107 this Autun school of
philosophy and rhetoric attracted students from all over the Empire.
A poem of 148 hexameters was written by a rhetorician of the famous
school of rhetoric which flourished in Autun at the time of
Constantine.
Taken by Julius Sacrovir in the year 21, Autun
was the center of the Sacrovir revolt led by this Gaul and Julius
Florus. Beaten by the legions that arrived to restore order, Julius
Sacrovir ends up committing suicide in one of his villas on the
outskirts of the city. In the third century, it was besieged for
seven months, taken and destroyed by the usurper Victorinus in 270;
then rebuilt in the following century by Constantine.
At the
beginning of 2010, during the construction of housing near the Porte
d'Arroux, the work revealed an ancient district as well as more than
100,000 bronze coins dating from the third century.
Middle
Ages
Léger (born around 616 - died in 678), was bishop of Autun.
He was tortured in Lucheux (Somme) on the order of the mayor of the
Ébroïn palace, who then had him assassinated. He chaired around 670
the second Council of Autun (after that of 599 convened by Bishop
Syagre).
The city was sacked by the Saracens of General
Ambiza on August 22, 725. Following this disaster, a few years later
in 733, Charles Martel entrusted it to Theodoric I (708-755?),
Grandson of Bernarius, founder of the line of Thierry, counts of
Autun, of which Thierry II of Autun (748-804) is brother of the
famous Guillaume de Gellone (751-28 May 812).
It was sacked
again by the Normans in 888. In the tenth century it became the
capital of a county dependent on the Duchy of Burgundy.
In the Middle Ages, the city became an important place of
pilgrimage, and was given a new cathedral in addition to the
Saint-Nazaire cathedral in Autun. People came to venerate the
supposed relics of Lazarus of Aix, not those of Saint Lazarus of
Bethany, that of the Bible, but those of a bishop of Aix-en-Provence
from the fifth century; the latter had participated in the
evangelization of Provence and had been beheaded during the reign of
Domitian, in the year 94. The cult of Lazare d'Aix, also called
Saint Lazare at Autun in the twelfth century, certainly responded to
that of Mary -Madeleine present in Vézelay. The Saint-Lazare
cathedral (1120), a Romanesque church of the Cluniac type, is famous
in particular for its tympanum, carved with many details
representing the Last Judgment and signed by the artist Gislebert.
This magnificent portal owes its exceptional preservation to the
canons of Autun, despite the destruction of medieval works committed
in the 18th century.
The causes of appeal from the court of
the Duke of Burgundy, recognize that the abbey of Saint-Martin
d'Autun, has seniority, high, medium and low justice on the land of
Chanchauvain, today Champ-Chanoux , and which also belonged to the
priory of Chanchanoux, to the finage of Saint-Eugène.
It was
on July 13, 1463, that the inhabitants of Saint-Martin and
Saint-Pantaléon received their letters of emancipation from the
abbot of the abbey of Saint-Martin d'Autun.
Modern times
In 1788, Talleyrand became bishop of Autun. He was elected deputy of
the clergy for the States General (France) of 1789. He delivered a
vibrant speech in 1789 to make himself known, because he had only
come once before.
In 1790, Autun was chosen to be the capital
of one of the seven districts of the brand new department of
Saône-et-Loire.
During the revolutionary period of the
National Convention (1792-1795), the town provisionally bore the
name of Bibracte.
The seventeenth-century lycée holds an
important place in the history of the city and even of France since
Napoleon Bonaparte, who gave it its current name, as well as his
brothers Joseph and Lucien were educated there. This school
continues to operate today. You can admire the wrought iron gates
erected in 1772, the subjects taught in this place are indicated by
various representations of objects along the top of these gates.
The former hotel of the Marquis de Fussey located rue de
l'Arquebuse, built in 1782, became the seat of the sub-prefecture in
1820. During the Franco-Prussian war, Garibaldi made it his
headquarters at the end of 1870 and the beginning of 1871.
Location and Regional Context
Autun lies in the heart of
Burgundy, at the gates of the Morvan Regional Natural Park (Parc
naturel régional du Morvan). This positions it in a strategic
transitional zone:
West: The Morvan massif — a granite upland
with rounded hills, dense forests, and higher elevations.
North:
Bocage landscapes (mixed farmland with hedgerows and meadows, often
called "bocage with wide mesh").
South and east: A sandstone
plateau covered in deciduous forests (notably the Domanial Forest of
Planoise) and gentler terrain leading toward the broader Saône plain
and other Burgundy wine regions.
The town is part of the
Autunois region, a grouping of communes centered around the Permian
Autun Basin (Bassin d'Autun), a geological depression.
Topography and Elevation
Autun's terrain is varied and
undulating:
Elevation range — The commune spans 280–642 m
(919–2,106 ft) above sea level, with the town itself generally
around 300–400 m. Average elevation in the broader area is about 378
m.
The city rests on the southern edge of the Permian Autun
Basin, a sedimentary depression with Permian-age rocks (including
the Autunian stratotype, important for paleontology and geology).
To the west and southwest, elevations rise toward the Morvan, with
nearby peaks exceeding 800–900 m (e.g., areas approaching
Haut-Folin, Burgundy's highest point at ~901 m).
Southward, a
sandstone plateau supports forests, while northern areas feature
more open, agricultural bocage with gentler slopes.
The
topography supports hiking, with trails like the GR 137 passing
through varied relief. The landscape combines forested hills, river
valleys, meadows, and plateaus, creating a mosaic typical of inland
Burgundy.
Hydrology
The Arroux River (a tributary of the
Loire system) flows through or near the agglomeration, providing a
key watercourse. It drains parts of the basin and surrounding hills.
Smaller streams and tributaries contribute to the local hydrology,
with the area featuring moderate water resources typical of the
region. Nearby bodies of water and the river valley add to the
scenic and agricultural value of the landscape.
Geology
The underlying geology is dominated by the Permian Autun Basin, with
sedimentary layers (sandstone, shale) from the Permian period. This
basin is geologically significant for its stratotype and historical
resources like oil shale (exploited in the 19th century) and
minerals (e.g., autunite, a uranium mineral first identified
nearby). The Morvan to the west brings older granite and metamorphic
rocks, while southern plateaus feature sandstone. This mix
influences soil fertility, supporting both forestry and agriculture.
Climate
Autun has a temperate continental climate with some
oceanic and slight southern influences, moderated by its altitude
(mostly below 400 m in the town proper). It is cooler and wetter
than Mediterranean France but milder than higher Morvan elevations.
Key data (1991–2020 averages):
Annual average temperature: ~10.7
°C (about 51 °F).
Temperature range: Significant seasonal
variation; summers comfortable, winters cold.
Annual
precipitation: Around 857–1,061 mm (depending on the period), fairly
evenly distributed but with wetter winters.
Extremes: Record high
40 °C (2003); record low −18.3 °C (2009).
Summers are
pleasant with partial cloud cover; winters are cold, windy, and
cloudier. Precipitation supports lush vegetation, including
deciduous forests and meadows.
Landscape and Land Use
The
surroundings feature a rich mosaic:
Forests — Deciduous woodlands
to the south (e.g., Planoise) and coniferous/mixed forests toward
the Morvan.
Agriculture — Bocage meadows and pastures to the
north, supporting livestock (historically important for cattle
fairs).
Hills and valleys — Rolling terrain with viewpoints
offering panoramas over the town, cathedral, and countryside.
Human impact — Roman-era planning, medieval walls, and modern
development blend with the natural setting. The area is popular for
tourism, hiking, and nature within the Morvan park influence.