Architecture, Museums and Historic Monuments

abbaye de Fontenay

The cistercian abbaye de Fontenay is a UNESCO world heritage site and the only intact monastery remaining in Burgundy. Founded in 1118 by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the abbey saw the height of it's influence in the XII and XIII centuries. It declined thereafter, several times attacked and plundered in the later Hundred Years War and wars of Religion. The abbey chuch was built in middle XII century in a cruciform plan, it's beautiful cloisters built around the same time.

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The abbey at Fontenay is a group of ten important buildings set in extensive formal gardens, all surrounded by the streams and quiet shade of its beautiful woodland valley. Due, in part, to the fine condition of the buildings, it gives perhaps the most comprehensive view of monastic life to be found in Europe.