One of the most moving places we have visited is the remote rural chapel of St-Martin-des-Puits. It is located in a steep, wooded river valley, along the side of a rutted one-lane country road. The rectangular choir of this tiny building is pre-Romanesque, divided from the 11th-century nave by a horseshoe-shaped Visigothic arch supported by a pair marble columns taken from an unknown Roman site. The choir is decorated by magnificent but badly damaged 12-century frescoes.The entire structure is rapidly deteriorating. There is no glass in the windows, so the interior (including the fragile frescos) stands exposed to the weather. The chapel is hauntingly beautiful and slowly disappearing.
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