Just over an hour west of us by car lies the Abbey of Le Thoronet, a former Cistercian abbey built in the late twelfth and early thirteenth century, now restored as a museum. Years ago, in the days of analog photography, we had stopped there on the way home from the southwest of France. I had fond memories of the place and had wanted to go back for a while now. The opportunity presented itself on June 29, 2013; we left Cannes around 10:30 in the morning and arrived at the abbey a little before 11:45. There were relatively few visitors (lunch time in France!), and we spent about an hour and a half exploring the abbey on our own before making our way back to the parking lot where we had a bite at an outdoor restaurant from where we could see the afternoon visitors arrive by car and bus. The history of the abbey is quite interesting; you can read up on it in various places, for instance here.
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Walking from the parking lot to the entrance |
The entrance to the abbey |
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The litte fountain... |
...amid the abbey gardens. |
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Approaching the church |
The abbey church |
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Inside the church |
The altar |
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The cloister |
The dormitories |
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View from the church side into the garden |
View from the cloister towards the church |
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The church |
Above the cloister |
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The roof of the storeroom |
Storeroom tiles |
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Tiles |
Looking down into the garden |
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Dormitory wall |
The covered fountain from above |
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The old fountain |
Looking from the fountain towards the church |
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Outside the dormitory building |
Back in the church on our way out |
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In front of the converts building |
Lovely textured wall |
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On the way to the square in front of the church |
Old tree trunk |
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Back at the garden by the entrance |
One last look towards the church |
All photos on this page were taken with a Fujifilm X100S compact camera.
Additional photos, taken on March 11, 2016, may be viewed in a web gallery.
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This page was last modified on June 29, 2013
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