On the summit of its mountain, the royal town of the Carolingians looms up like a Mont-Saint-Michel, with its eighty classified buildings dominating the plains of Picardy.
     On its bluff, the Cathedral of Notre Dame, towering one hundred metres, seems to float between heaven and earth.

  Visitors wandering along the cobblestone streets and the seven kilometres of ramparts, the cathedral, abbeys, religious shelters, bourgeois houses, and private residences will discover the art and history of France.
  The relatively unknown treasures of Laon are witness to the glories of an era: the cathedral is one of the oldest Gothic style cathedral in France.
 At the other end of the town, the abbey of Saint-Martin, of the order of Prémontré, challenges the 'star' status of the cathedral. Less grandiose, the church has great charm with its fourteenth-century façade, cloister (of which the stairway is a real technical masterpiece), seventeenth-century abbots' residence of brick and stone, and a charming ornamental pavilion.

 
  As if by chance, the narrow alleys, the ramparts and the stones themselves tell their history: the Rue du Cloître with the cannons' residences to the right, the commoners' to the left; the Rue Georges-Ermant, with its charming Templars chapel which houses a most unusual tomb, the famous mummified body of Guillaume de Harcigny, the doctor of Charles VI and, next door, the local museum, of which the plain nineteenth-century façade hides a most important collection of Greek antiquities; the Rue Vinchon with its religious refuges; the south rampart with the Porte d'Ardon, a little drinking trough for animals at its feet; in the distance the Abbey of Saint-Vincent which bears witness to a famous wine-growing past; and the Rue du Change, with its Hôtel du Dauphin and its curious covered balcony made of wood.
     Victor Hugo wrote enthusiastically: "Everything is beautiful at Laon: the churches, the houses, the surroundings." He was quite right, and a good deal of time is needed to really experience Laon and its classified buildings situated in one of the largest protected heritage sites in France.