Postcard Greetings from Beaune

Greetings from Hôtel-Dieu des Hospices de Beaune.  In 1443, Nicolas Rolin, the extremely wealthy chancellor of the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good, built the Hospices de Beaune, a hospital to welcome and treat the poor and needy. The building served this charitable and medicinal purpose until 1971. The hospital was then transferred to a more adapted and more modern location in Beaune. It’s the second time that we visit, and the magnificent Gothic hospital doesn’t fail to impress us. It is famously topped by stunning turrets and pitched rooftops covered in multicoloured tiles. Interior highlights include the barrel-vaulted Grande Salle, the mural-covered St-Hughes Room, an 18th-century pharmacy lined with flasks once filled with elixirs and powders, and last but not least the multipanelled masterpiece Polyptych of the Last Judgement by 15th-century Flemish painter Rogier van der Weyden, depicting Judgment Day in glorious technicolour – Beaune, Cote d’Or, Burgundy, France