Notre Dame des Cyclistes, National cycling sanctuary in Labastide-d'Armagnac, France.
Notre-Dame des Cyclistes is a small Romanesque stone chapel in Labastide-d'Armagnac, built at the end of the 11th century on the site of a Gallo-Roman villa. Its rough tan masonry walls carry a red clay tiled roof that slopes over a rounded apse with a narrow slit window; a square tower with a pyramidal tiled roof and a cross rises on the left. A black wrought-iron gate with a large wheel design stands between stone pillars before a patch of grass.
The church was built at the end of the 11th century on the site of a late Roman villa and became the parish church in the 1270s. It is all that remains of a Knights Templar fortress; the Château de Géou was razed in 1355 by the Black Prince. On 18 May 1959 Pope John XXIII made the abandoned chapel the National Sanctuary of Cycling and Cyclotourism.
Each Whit Monday a Mass is celebrated here for cyclists, and the Tour de France has passed the chapel several times, with a stage departing from Labastide-d'Armagnac on 9 July 1989. The stained glass window was designed by former Tour rider Henri Anglade to represent cycling, reportedly celebrating the 1952 Tour moment when Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali shared a bottle on the Col d'Izoard.
The chapel stands a few hundred metres from the village of Labastide-d'Armagnac, in the Landes department; the Géou site and its surroundings are a listed site covering 2.4 hectares. The building is entered through a wrought-iron gate with a large wheel design set between stone pillars, with a patch of grass in front. A mass for cyclists is held here each Whit Monday.
The sanctuary was proclaimed by Pope John XXIII on 18 May 1959, after Father Joseph Massie of Créon-d'Armagnac returned from Madonna del Ghisallo in Italy, having ridden 1,500 km back over the Col de Tende with the consecrated flame. Massie had earlier crossed the Tourmalet in his cassock, earning him the nickname of a French Don Camillo.
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