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Approaching AVALLON along the N6 from the north, you wouldn't give the place a second look. But the southern aspect is altogether more promising, as the town stands high on a ridge above the wooded valley of the River Cousin, looking out over the hilly, sparsely populated country of the Morvan regional park. Once a staging post on the Romans' Via Agrippa from Lyon to Boulogne on the Channel coast, it is a small and ancient town of stone facades and comatose cobbled streets, bisected north to south by the narrow Grande-Rue-Aristide-Briand . Under the straddling arch of the fifteenth-century Tour de l'Horloge , whose spire dominates the town, this street brings you to the pilgrim church of St Lazare , on whose battered Romanesque facade you can still decipher the graceful carvings of signs of the zodiac, labours of the months and the old musicians of the Apocalypse. Almost opposite, in a fifteenth-century house, is the tourist office, with the municipal museum (daily Easter-Nov 10am-12.30pm & 2-6.30pm; 20F/¬3.04) behind it; exhibits include a room of modern silverware, designed by local boy Jean Despres, and a second-century mosaic from a Gallo-Roman villa. There is also the Musée du Costume at 6 rue de Belgrand (April-Nov 10am-6pm; 25F/¬3.81), just off Grande-Rue, with a collection of regional dress. Continuing from St-Lazare down the street, now called rue Bocquillot, brings you to the lime-shaded Promenade de la Petite Porte , with precipitous views across the plunging valley of the Cousin. You can walk from here around the outside of the walls . From the Parc des Chaumes , on the east side of town, there is a great view back to the old quarter, snug within its walls, with garden terraces descending on the slope beneath. You can't miss the statue of Vauban , almost like a statue of Vercingétorix, standing guard over the place Vauban - the great military architect was born in the Morvan in 1633.