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An afternoon's bike ride or a short drive east out of Orleans, crossing to the north bank at Chateauneuf-sur-Loire (whose chateau has very pleasant gardens of magnolias and rhododendrons), brings you to GERMIGNY-DES-PRES . The church here (daily 8am-7pm) was built in 806 in the form of a Greek cross. The eastern apse is original, with a rare early gold and silver mosaic on the dome, depicting angels and the Ark of the Covenant. Covered by distemper, this was only discovered by accident in the middle of last century when children were found playing with coloured glass cubes in the church. A few kilometres further south along the D60, ST-BENOIT-SUR-LOIRE offers an even more impressive ancient edifice: the Abbaye de Fleury , where a marble mosaic of Roman origin covers the chancel floor of one of the most awe-inspiring Romanesque churches in France, built in pale yellow and cream-coloured stone between 1020 and 1218 (daily 7am-10pm; guided tours 10.30am-3pm - available in English; 20F/?3.05).The oldest part of the church, the porch, illustrates the Vision of the Apocalypse by the fantastically sculpted capitals and by the layout that follows the description of the New Jerusalem in Revelation - foursquare, with twelve foundations and three open gates on each side. The rest of the abbey was destroyed during the Revolution, rebuilt and destroyed again during World War II.
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