Halfway down the broad, leafy boulevard de la Colonne is Chambéry's most famous monument, the splendidly extravagant, and somewhat off-scale Fontaine des Éléphants, erected in homage to the Comte de Boigne, a native son who amassed a fortune working as a mercenary in India in the eighteenth century, and who used much of his vast wealth to fund major urban developments in his home town. Just south of this on square de Lannoy-de-Bissy is the Musée Savoisien (Mon & Wed–Sun 10am–noon & 2–6pm; €3.20), which chronicles the history of Savoie from the Bronze Age onwards. On the first floor are some very lovely paintings, including a finely executed fifteenth-century work showing the Annunciation, and painted wooden statues from various churches in the region; on the second floor, there's a collection of tools, carts, hay-sledges, and some fine furniture from a house in Bessans, with a fascinating kitchen range made of wood and lined with lauzes (slabs of schist). Of most interest, though, are the extremely rare thirteenth-century wall paintings from Cruet, housed in their own temperature-regulated room, which, unusually, depict secular scenes; in this case, frenzied battles and images of elegant court life.Next to the museum, in the enclosed little place Métropole, the cathedral has a handsome, though much restored, Flamboyant facade. The inside is painted in elaborate nineteenth-century trompe l'oecil, imitating the twisting shapes and whorls of the high Gothic style. The cathedral's treasury (May–Aug daily 3–6pm; free) is worth a look for its twelfth-century ivory diptych and thirteenth-century pyxis (a case for holding the Eucharist). A passage leads from the square to rue de la Croix-d'Or, with numerous restaurants and the Italianate Théâtre Charles Dullin, named after the avant-garde director who was born in the region. To the right, there's the long, rectangular place St-Léger, with a fountain and more cafés, where street musicians perform on summer evenings. Rousseau and Mme de Warens lived here in 1735, and also had a country cottage, Les Charmettes, just 2km south of the town on the rustic chemin des Charmettes. It's now the Musée Jean-Jacques Rousseau (April–Sept daily 10am–noon & 2–6pm; Oct–March Mon & Wed–Sun 10am–noon & 2–4.30pm; €3.20), furnished in the style of the famous philosopher's day, with a lovely garden and apple orchard alongside. Towards the northern end of the square, the town's smartest street, rue de Boigne, to the right, leads back to the Fontaine des Éléphants, but if you continue past this intersection, a narrow medieval lane on the left, rue Basse-du-Château, brings you out beneath the elegant apse of the Ste-Chapelle, the castle chapel, whose lancet windows and star vaulting are in the same late Gothic style as the cathedral. It was built to house the Holy Shroud, that much-venerated and today highly controversial piece of linen reputed to bear the image of the dead Christ. It was badly damaged in a sixteenth-century fire, and when the dukes later transferred their capital to Turin, the Shroud went with them, but a full-size nineteenth-century photograph remains on display here. The chapel contains the biggest carillon in Europe, a 70-bell monster which you can hear in action on Saturdays at 10.30am and 5.30pm. To get into the chapel head left to the entrance of the Château des Ducs de Savoie (guided tours: July & Aug Mon–Sat 10.30am, 2.30, 3.30 & 4.30pm, afternoons only on Sun; May, June & Sept daily, 2.30pm; €4), which provides the only access. A massive and imposing structure, it was once the main home of the dukes of Savoie, and is now occupied by the préfecture. A short walk north from the door of the castle along promenade Veyrat is the Musée des Beaux Arts (Mon & Wed–Sat 10am–noon & 2–6pm; €3.20), which is largely devoted to works by lesser-known sixteenth- to eighteenth-century Italian artists, though the pride of the collection is Uccello's Portrait of a Young Man, and there are also a few minor Titian cartoons. Meanwhile, the church of St-Pierre-de-Lemenc, off boulevard de Lemenc is worth the twenty-minute walk north of the centre, for its small but intriguing crypt, housing a Romanesque baptistry, rare fourteenth-century wall paintings and a fifteenth-century stone sculpture group. Upstairs lies the tomb of St-Concord, a twelfth-century Archbishop of Armagh, who died here en route to Rome.
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