Nièvre is the department of the Morvan, that granite massif in the heart of Burgundy which once supplied Paris with wet nurses — wet nurses from Nièvre breastfed the children of the Parisian bourgeoisie — and with firewood, which was floated down the rivers to the Seine. This tradition of wet nursing and forestry has left behind a landscape of hedgerows and forests, in which castles and abbeys blend discreetly.
Nevers, the departmental capital on the banks of the Loire, is known for its Italian-style decorated earthenware and for the Church of Sainte-Bernadette-du-Banlay, a 20th-century building shaped like a blockhouse that houses the relics of Bernadette Soubirous. The Château-Musée de Nevers and the Ducal Palace bear witness to the city’s importance as the capital of the county and later the Duchy of Nevers.
Château-Chinon, the former capital of the Morvan and the stronghold of François Mitterrand, Clamecy on the banks of the Beuvron, La Charité-sur-Loire with its Cluniac priory listed as a historic monument, and the ponds and forests of the Morvan paint an authentic and unspoilt picture of rural Burgundy that hurried tourists merely pass through.