Hospices de Beaune (Hôtel-Dieu)

The Hospices de Beaune, also called the Hôtel-Dieu, is one of the best-known buildings in Burgundy and in France, recognisable from a distance by its steep roof of glazed tiles in green, red, yellow and black arranged in diamond patterns. It was founded in 1443 by Nicolas Rolin, chancellor of Burgundy under Duke Philip the Good, together with his wife Guigone de Salins. The town was recovering from the Hundred Years' War, and the hospital was meant to care for the poor and sick. The architecture draws on the hospital traditions of Flanders, a link to the Burgundian dukes who ruled the Low Countries.

The building is arranged around a cobbled courtyard with timber galleries and slate-and-tile roofs, closed in by dormer windows and gables. The most striking room is the Grande Salle des Pôvres, a long vaulted hall with a painted timber ceiling, where rows of beds with red curtains line the walls and the sick could see the chapel altar from their beds. In the nearby rooms you can visit the kitchen with its great fireplace, the pharmacy with rows of old pots and jars, and the rooms where the nuns lived. Sisters of the Hospices de Beaune worked in the building until 1971, when a modern hospital took over.

The museum's most prized work is the Last Judgment polyptych by the Flemish painter Rogier van der Weyden, commissioned for the hospital chapel. Its panels show the weighing of souls, with the saved and the damned on either side. It is displayed in a dedicated room with careful lighting, and it is the artwork people most often remember afterwards.

The Hospices also lives on as a wine estate. Over the centuries the hospital received gifts of vineyard land, and today it owns plots in some of Burgundy's best-known appellations, including Pommard, Meursault and Corton-Charlemagne. The harvest is sold in a charity auction held on the third Sunday of November, an event that sets the tone for Burgundy prices and attracts buyers and spectators from all over the world. The proceeds go to the maintenance of the hospital's heritage and to medical causes.

The site also has a wartime story. In the Second World War the nuns are said to have helped people linked to the Resistance, using the old galleries beneath the building for shelter. Allow around ninety minutes for the visit, and use the audio guide, which explains the rooms in order. The Hospices is easy to combine with the Église Notre-Dame de Beaune, a few minutes away, and with the Musée des Beaux-Arts and the wine museums in the old town. It suits anyone interested in medieval architecture, art or Burgundy wine.