Cistercian, Benedictine or royal, French abbeys are among the finest examples of Romanesque and Gothic art. From Mont-Saint-Michel to the Provençal sisters of Sénanque, Le Thoronet and Silvacane, they charm with their pared-back architecture, peaceful cloisters and often secluded settings.
This selection brings together abbeys still inhabited by monks and others that have become cultural venues, such as Fontevraud, burial place of the Plantagenets, or Royaumont. All of them are open to visitors and offer a moment of calm in the heart of their region.
On a rocky islet in the middle of immense sands subject to the coming and going of powerful tides, on the border between Normandy and Brittany, rise the "Wonder of the West", a Gothic Benedictine abbey dedicated to the archangel Saint Michael, and the village born in the shelter of its walls.
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Fontenay Abbey is a Cistercian abbey founded in 1118 in the French commune of Marmagne, in the Côte-d'Or département and the Burgundy region.
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Founded in 1101 by Robert d'Arbrissel, heir to a prestigious past, the Royal Abbey of Fontevraud became in 1975, through the combined impetus of the Pays de la Loire Region and the Ministry of Culture, a Cultural Meeting Centre entrusted with heritage management.
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Notre-Dame de Sénanque is a working Cistercian monastery in the commune of Gordes (Vaucluse), in the valley where the Sénancole flows.
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Le Thoronet Abbey is a Cistercian abbey in the commune of Le Thoronet, in the Var.
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Silvacane abbey is a Cistercian abbey in the commune of La Roque-d'Anthéron, in the Bouches-du-Rhône.
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The abbey of Saint-Pierre de Jumièges (Seine-Maritime) was founded by Saint Philibert, son of a Frankish count of Gascony, around 654 on a royal treasury estate at Jumièges. Jumièges abbey became State property again in 1947, then property of the Seine-Maritime département in 2007 as part of…
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Cluny Abbey, founded in 910, developed very quickly, led by its illustrious abbots.
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Founded in 1093 by a few Benedictine monks, Fontfroide joined the Cistercian Order in 1145 and quickly became one of the most powerful Cistercian abbeys of Christendom.
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Noirlac abbey is a Cistercian abbey in the Cher, built in the second third of the twelfth century.
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The abbey ensemble is made up of the church, the conventual building, the abbot's lodging and the gardens.
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Built from 948 on a rocky islet that then rose above the Camargue marshes, the abbey of Saint-Pierre de Montmajour is one of the largest Romanesque monastic complexes in Provence.
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Royaumont Abbey is a former Cistercian monastery in the hamlet of Baillon, in Asnières-sur-Oise in the Val-d'Oise, about thirty kilometres north of Paris.
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