Chamalières 4.93

Chamalières is a commune in the Puy-de-Dôme department in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes in central France.Chamalières is the third-largest town in the department and lies about 150mi from Lyon.HistorySeveral thousand wooden Gallo-Roman ex-votos, most of them anthropomorphic standing figures, also including images of limbs and internal organs, dated by associated coins to the first century, were recovered from the shrine at the mineral springs known as the Source des Roches ("Rock Spring"). An inscribed lead tablet found at the spring is a major source of information on the Gaulish language. A comparable cache of Gaulish ex-voto were recovered from a sanctuary at the sources of the Seine, sacred to Sequana.Notable placesChamalières is the place where the Banque de France located its printing works in 1923, which printed former French franc banknotes, and now prints Euro banknotes.People Raoul Lufbery (1885–1918), French-American fighter pilot and flying ace in World War I. Pierre Schoendoerffer (1928–2012), French film director Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (°1926), former President of the French Republic (1974-1981), former mayor of Chamalières (1967-1974). Renaud Camus (°1946), French author and essayist