AT A GLANCE

Why go?

Standing above the turquoise shallows of the Wallis lagoon in the tiny capital of Mata-Utu, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption is the kind of building that makes you stop mid-stride. Its twin rectangular towers, built from hand-chiseled blue volcanic stone, rise improbably from a town of only a few streets. Between those towers sits a Maltese cross in matching blue stone — the royal insignia of Wallis, identical to the one on the territory's flag — so the cathedral is simultaneously a house of God and a banner of chieftaincy. This is France's smallest overseas capital, and its most commanding monument.↗↗↗

What strikes most visitors is the disproportion between ambition and setting. The Marist missionaries who raised the structure in the 19th century built it as a↗↗↗