Photo : --Pinpin 20:15, 10 July 2006 (UTC) / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Abbaye Sainte-Marie de Fontfroide
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.
The abbey is in the heart of the Fontfroide Massif made up of 4,000 hectares of intact nature.
Bathed by the Fontfroide stream, this sumptuous twelfth- and thirteenth-century Cistercian ensemble is nestled in the heart of a typically Mediterranean landscape.
During the Albigensian Crusade, it asserted itself as a bastion of Catholic orthodoxy against Catharism.
After the monks' last departure in 1901, Gustave and Madeleine Fayet bought it in 1908, restored it, embellished it. Inside, the terraced gardens set on the hills are open to visit.
