Here are 17 photos of the Church of Saint-Dalmas-du-Plan, or Church of the Holy Cross in the village of Saint-Dalmas in the commune of Valdeblore in southeastern France.

Founded by Benedictine monks from Pedona, near Turin, the church was first mentioned in 1060, making it nearly a thousand years old. It’s known as an excellent architectural example of the first Roman Lombard period (600-800 AD), for its remnants of wall painting dating back to the 12th century, but mostly for the three crypts that have been unearthed over the last three decades. The central of the three is the oldest, with the remaining two added at the end of the 11th or beginning of the 12th century. Parts of the floor also conceal burial plots that date back to the 9th century.

According to an English language translation of an info leaflet, it is “the only church in Europe where the internal surfaces are conserved in their original state”. I’m not sure what that means and there was nobody around to provide a fuller explanation.

But in any case, it’s well worth a stop when passing through or near Saint-Dalmas, especially with an excellent boulangerie and cafe just a few steps away from the church walls.

The area was a well trodden crossroads with the nearby Col de Fenestre linking the western valleys of the French Alps and Provence to Piemont and other points in western present-day Italy. The village was likely selected as a location for a large church because it was named to honor Dalmace of Pavia, an evangelist who was beheaded in 254 on the banks of the Gesso River by bandits who stopped him as he was passing through the Col de Fenestre. It’s said that Dalmace picked up his head and crossed to river to die on the other side.

Fifteen more photos below.

The crypts..

And as in many churches in France, memorials to local missionaries and war dead..

Note about the photos: all of the interior photos were taken with high ISO, as high as the maximim 12800 in some cases, with denoise applied in processing. That smooths the images but in some cases reduces the detail significantly, so the detail as rendered here is only accurate to varying degrees.

Photos from 27 June 2026.