Tour des Fromages
Climb the 120 steps of this 11th-century Romanesque tower — once used to ripen cheese, hence the name — and you'll be rewarded with the finest 360-degree view over Cluny's terracotta rooftops, the surviving abbey towers and the rolling Mâconnais hills beyond.
The View from the Top
From the summit platform you can pick out the Clocher de l'Eau Bénite and the Tour de l'Horloge rising above the abbey precinct, and on clear days the Jura mountains form a faint blue wall to the east. It's the single best vantage point for understanding how the medieval town grew around the abbey like a shell around a pearl.
The tower stands on the corner of Rue d'Avril and Rue de la République, right in the historic centre. The staircase is narrow and uneven — wear flat shoes and watch your head on the lower beams.
History of the Tower
The Tour des Fromages is one of only a handful of pre-Romanesque civic structures surviving in Burgundy. It was part of the original town wall and later repurposed by local monks as a cheese-ageing store, a function that gave it its wonderfully prosaic name.
The ground floor now serves as Cluny's tourist office, so you can pick up walking-tour maps and book guided visits to the abbey in the same stop before ascending.
Best Time to Visit
Late afternoon light rakes across the abbey ruins and turns the limestone rooftops amber — plan your climb for around 5 pm in summer. The platform is narrow and fits perhaps eight people comfortably, so mid-week mornings in July and August are the least crowded.
Photography tip: bring a wide-angle lens or use your phone's ultra-wide mode; the tower top is too tight for a standard zoom to capture both the abbey and the hills in a single frame.
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