Just a few minutes from Gordes is the l’Abbaye Notre-Dame de Sénanque. I’d seen photos of this abbey surrounded by fields of lavender so that, coupled with my unnatural obsession with monks, meant that this was our first stop of the day.
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We hadn’t realised that to visit the abbey you have to join a guided tour and that these only go at certain times of the day, so we were faced with a decision of waiting 40 minutes and joining two coach loads of tourists, or conducting our own visit of the outside.
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We decided to have a mooch around the gift shop while we made up our minds. After a short contre-temps with a grumpy French man who wouldn’t let us in (he thought we were part of his coach party wandering off!), we had a flick through the souvenir books and discovered that the inside was relatively bare.
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As we were debating, one of the monks made an appearance and I was in hogs heaven! I’m not sure what it is about them, but I was completely fascinated and almost asked to have my photo taken with him, but in the end I was worried that someone (mentioning no names) might not approve!
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In the end, we decided to conduct our own tour of the outside and have a nosy at the monkery (I’m pretty sure that’s the right word, but I can’t remember what they call the places that monks live!). At the very back, we found a tree that was completely split in half but somehow still living. Perhaps a touch of divine intervention?
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On the way back to the car, we both got an attack of Tourettes. What is it about religious places that make you just want to spout all manner of blasphemous words and phrases?? I just couldn’t help myself, and even when I switched to French I managed to come out with ‘Milles Tonneres’ which is roughly translated as ‘Hell and Damnation’ – there is no hope really…
.jpg)
We hadn’t realised that to visit the abbey you have to join a guided tour and that these only go at certain times of the day, so we were faced with a decision of waiting 40 minutes and joining two coach loads of tourists, or conducting our own visit of the outside.
.jpg)
We decided to have a mooch around the gift shop while we made up our minds. After a short contre-temps with a grumpy French man who wouldn’t let us in (he thought we were part of his coach party wandering off!), we had a flick through the souvenir books and discovered that the inside was relatively bare.
.jpg)
As we were debating, one of the monks made an appearance and I was in hogs heaven! I’m not sure what it is about them, but I was completely fascinated and almost asked to have my photo taken with him, but in the end I was worried that someone (mentioning no names) might not approve!
.jpg)
In the end, we decided to conduct our own tour of the outside and have a nosy at the monkery (I’m pretty sure that’s the right word, but I can’t remember what they call the places that monks live!). At the very back, we found a tree that was completely split in half but somehow still living. Perhaps a touch of divine intervention?
.jpg)
On the way back to the car, we both got an attack of Tourettes. What is it about religious places that make you just want to spout all manner of blasphemous words and phrases?? I just couldn’t help myself, and even when I switched to French I managed to come out with ‘Milles Tonneres’ which is roughly translated as ‘Hell and Damnation’ – there is no hope really…
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