The best traffic-free bike rides around Vitrai-Sous-Laigle

In the center of Randonnai, the 16th-century Saint-Malo church, enlarged in 1836, houses several works classified as Historic Monuments, including a classical altarpiece with paintings of Saint Andrew and Saint Sebastian. Funeral slabs serve as threshold steps. Inside, a plaque commemorates the departure of Pierre Tremblay (whose birthplace is in La Filonnière) in 1647 for New France. He is the ancestor of the Tremblays of Quebec and North America.

This building was erected towards the end of the 15th century, on the former medieval fiefdom known since 1260 as the "Normandel Farm" and long owned by the Viron family. In the chapel dedicated to him, a beautiful 16th-century statue depicting Saint Firmin as a bishop and the magnificent white stone altarpiece, sculpted and ornamented in the purest Renaissance style, evoke the ardent faith of this evangelizer of Roman Gaul in the 3rd century. The current church, restored at the end of the 19th century in the style of the period after a long period of neglect, retains some traces of the old construction: the masonry of the rear wall overlooking the cemetery, with the remains of a small closed door and two buttresses of large rubble, and on the gable of the transept overlooking the road, a large Flamboyant Gothic window. The church of Normandel preserves other elements of great interest. In the chapel, on the right side, is a beautiful 16th-century polychrome stone Virgin and Child. Below the statue, a second stone altarpiece, finely carved and ornamented in the Renaissance style, shows, on one side, Mary seated near Jesus holding a chalice, and Joseph leaning on his cane, to whom the young John the Baptist appears to be bidding farewell before departing for the desert. In the nave, the large Christ on the cross, surrounded by Mary and Saint John, is moving in its sobriety: the outstretched arms of the crucified bear the full weight of our humanity, raising it to God. In the sacristy, an old fragment of an embroidered banner bears the image of Saint Firmin and the inscription "Charity of Normandel - 1513."

Since 1823, the commune's territory has united the former parish of La Trinité, which was under the bishopric of Chartres, and that of Beaulieu, under the bishopric of Evreux, located on either side of the Avre River, which marked the separation. The tall brick bell tower-porch was added in the 19th century to the older nave (15th-16th centuries?), rectangular in plan, whose wooden vault rests on an exposed roof frame. This modest rural church houses, as a counterpart to the Curé d'Ars, a 15th-century polychrome stone Virgin of exceptional artistic quality. The two sculpted doors of the sacristy come from La Trinité, as well as the engraved "flat tomb" attached to the nave wall. It dates from the 15th century. and the inscriptions are difficult to decipher: Jean Fillon, wearing a canon's hood and a chasuble, his hands clasped and his feet resting on two small dogs, is depicted in a Gothic setting with two angels, silhouettes of altar boys, and canons. Near the baptismal font decorated with three fleurs-de-lis is a large painting of Saint Gilles the hermit, with the doe lying at his feet. A beautiful series of stained-glass windows from the early 20th century illustrate scenes from the New Testament, and two others show Joan of Arc at the king's coronation in Reims, then taking communion in her prison before being led to the stake.

very beautiful section of greenway in very good condition and shaded thanks to a beautiful forest.

The church is located near a departmental road and is surrounded by a cemetery. Church oriented with a longitudinal plan composed of a single nave. The entrance to the building is via a porch body. An annex building is attached to the north side of the choir. The western facade of the porch body rises on two levels delimited by a projecting cornice. It is pierced by a low-arched door as well as a rose window in the upper part. The bell tower, of polygonal plan, is positioned on the ridge of the roof. It is covered with a polygonal spire surmounted by a ridge cross and has two roof eaves. The building is covered with a gable roof. That of the annex building ends in a hip. The side walls are pierced with arched bays and supported by buttresses. The annex building is pierced by a quadrangular window and door. The buttresses of the choir bear witness to the Romanesque origins of the church. The nave, built in the 16th century, was enlarged in the 19th century by a bay to the west. The bays of the building were re-pierced around 1822.

Église Saint Madeleine is a church where beautiful various statues of Saints, famous and less famous. The reason for so many different statues is that the school of sculpture was established here.

In the nearby park shaded by large trees, the ruins of fortifications recall the memory of the six towers of the old castle built in the 11th century……. In the nearby park shaded by large trees, the ruins of fortifications recall the memory of the six towers of the old castle built in the 11th century by Geoffroy IV, Count of Perche, in order to control this border region near the Chartres region, Normandy, and the possessions of the Lords of Bellême and Alençon which extended as far as Sées. During the Hundred Years' War, Charles, Count of Evreux and King of Navarre, allied with the English against the King of France, seized the fortress in 1364. It was then besieged and retaken on behalf of King Charles V by his younger brother Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, using catapults that threw large stones to collapse sections of the walls. But after the English victory at Verneuil in 1424, they rushed to destroy Marchainville, setting fire to the town and the castle. The church, too, has experienced some vicissitudes. It occupies the site of a very old small monastery, given to the abbey of Saint-Evrouit by a certain Fulchierus of Chartres, who was chaplain to Baldwin I, King of Jerusalem and author of an account of the first crusade. The monks built the priory church in the 11th century, of which the thick right wall with its flat buttresses, the cornice in grison stone, and the support points of the descending roof, which housed a small adjoining cloister, still remain. The church was enlarged (end of the 15th or beginning of the 16th century) along its entire length by a side nave resting on stone arches, whose voussures connect without capitals to octagonal pillars. On the unfortunate initiative of Abbot Fleuriel, this side nave was knocked down in 1723, and the roof of the church lowered. It was not until 1810 that a new priest, Abbot Dubois, had the four arcades of the current chapel of the Virgin reopened. The three other old arcades, still visible, remain blocked in the left wall of the nave. Unfortunately, on March 15, 1820, the shock of an earthquake caused the old square bell tower of the priory, which was located above the entrance to the choir, to collapse, which caused considerable damage. Thanks to the generosity of the inhabitants and the personal contribution of the Bishop of Séez, the church was repaired and a new bell tower was erected next to the entrance porch in 1824. On the classical-style altarpiece, a painting, dated 1949, of the Holy Virgin surrounded by angels replaces the painting of the Assumption hanging in the nave. The 18th century tabernacle presents a pretty wooden statuette of the resurrected Christ, with on each side those of a holy bishop with a kneeling donor, and perhaps a Father of the Church. Two pretty statues of Saint Lawrence and Saint Peter adorn the altarpiece of the chapel of the Virgin, where in the center appears the traditional image of Our Lady of Victories presenting Jesus as a child on a starry sphere that symbolizes the world. Above, appear God the Father, his arms outstretched, and the Holy Spirit. Finally, let us not forget the curious statue of Saint Louis with his scepter, presenting the crown of thorns and the three nails of the crucifixion, nor the ancient painting, in the nave, of Saint Eloi as bishop, with his anvil of patron saint of blacksmiths.

Located in a green setting, this chapel of Romanesque origin has preserved all of its 16th century painted decor. An excellent overview of the artistic production of the period. Romanesque in origin and then remodeled in the 12th and 15th centuries, the chapel of Réveillon is one of the rare churches that have preserved their wall paintings. The richness of its treatment and themes is exceptional. We can still read on these walls a profusion of details such as a frieze of arabesques where birds, fruits and flowers are intertwined. Its varied themes represent, among others, The Dict of the Dead and the Three Living, the Passion, the Temptation, the Lives of the Saints and Martyrs, Saint Christopher, etc.