Toulouse, France: Notre-Dame du Taur

You can't tell it from this photo, but the Notre-Dame du Taur has one of the skinniest fronts to a church you've ever seen. It is crammed into the middle of a block, so people who encounter the entrance while walking down the street have no idea how big it is. That is an odd sensation with a big church, which usually has a lot of space around it. For our purposes, it is difficult to be far enough back in order to take a good photo of the entire front of the building. This shot will have to be good enough.

So why is the building where it is? That's an interesting story. Saint Saturnin was the first bishop of Toulouse. He had encountered a bull that dragged him to his death. A church was built on the spot where the Bishop was detached from the bull. Yuck. 

Pilgrims often stopped at the church once it was built to pay respects. Eventually it became so popular that a new facility was needed ... and one was built down the street. Saturnin's bones were moved down the street as well. Meanwhile, the city had a spare statue of the Virgin Mary sitting around after some work on the walls, so the monument went into the new church in the late 1700s.