A spire tops the five-staged, octagonal tower of Toulouse's finest building: one of the most delightful Romanesque churches anywhere. Built between 1070 and 1300, the soaring nave is beautifully proportioned with double side-aisles and lit with long-hanging chandeliers. It focusses attention on the gilded altarpiece above the tomb of St Sernin (aka St Saturnin), Toulouse’s first bishop who met a gruesome end when pagan priests tied him to a bull in 257 CE.
Beneath that, accessed from the ambulatory, is a double-leveled crypt full of holy reliquaries.
