Unlisted in mainstream guidebooks, there are places where you will not be bothered by a noisy crowd of tourists, where intrusive souvenir sellers won’t hammer at you. This town with a thousand-year history enjoys its every day, wakes up every morning, makes lavender oil for itself, and not for sale. And every Sunday at 10 a.m., its residents come to Mass at the Cathedral of St. Anne or Apt Cathedral.

The temple stands on the catacombs of the first church of the 5th-7th centuries. Auspice was the bishop of Apt during that time; he was later martyred. The catacombs have two floors; the second one is the remains of the foundation of the second church, built in the 10th-11th centuries. You can go down there by following an undistinguished staircase inside the cathedral. It is not easy to tell the foundation date of the third church because of the five-hundred years of construction. Fair enough, in the outlines of the facade, you will see that the Romanesque architecture is mixed with Gothic and Renaissance architecture. After the French Revolution, the bishopric was transferred from Apt, and the temple lost its right to be called a cathedral. It is now more correct to say “small basilica,” but the citizens of Apt still use the word “cathedral.”

St. Anne is the grandmother of Jesus, the mother of the Virgin Mary. Anne and her husband Joachim couldn’t have children for a long time. Anne prayed to the Lord, promising to give Him a child if she conceived. The Archangel Gabriel appeared to her in a dream and said that God had heard her prayers and that she would give birth to Mary, who would become an earthly mother to God’s son. The cathedral was also patronized by another Anne, that of Austria, the most beautiful woman in Europe and the wife of the King of France Louis XIII. She financed the construction of a chapel at the cathedral and paid pilgrims to go to Apt and pray for her since she couldn’t have children for a long time. Anne of Austria gave birth to the heir to the throne only at the age of 37.

The treasury of the cathedral contains priceless relics: Saint Anne’s veil (according to legend, brought by the first bishop, Auspice, from Palestine), manuscripts of the 11th-12th centuries with recorded sacred polyphonic chants, the Arab banner, conquered by the crusaders in First Crusade. In the temple, you can admire a 15th-century window with a preserved stained-glass window. It depicts the Old Testament subject, the genealogical tree of Christ from Jesse and David, his ancestors.