Date of visit: April 26, 2011, around 2:00 p.m.
This is not a tour of the most beautiful villages, but a series of visits to world heritage sites. I visited the Cistercian Abbey on April 26th.
It is located in Burgundy. It is in the northwest direction from the central city Dijon. This is an area where the scenery is like this all the time!
It is true that you can see rape blossom fields here and there in Europe in this season, but I don’t think it is possible to see such a vast field of rape blossoms. It was very impressive.
Well, Fontenay is only an hour away from Vezelay, where we also stayed the night before, if we don’t make any detours. We left Vezelay a little after 11:00 a.m. and stopped at a beautiful village before that, so I think we arrived there around 2:00 p.m.
ここは世界遺産にも認定されている900年近く歴史あるシトー会の修道院とのことです。(Wikipediaより)
The scale is not large, but I was impressed that it is very well managed and maintained. By the way, it’s a beautiful day.
The inside of the monastery and church.
シトー会修道院といえば、昨年訪れたドイツにある「マウルブロン修道院」もそうでした。建物がとっても立派でどちらかというと豪華さも兼ね備えているようにもみえるのですが、一方で非常に内部に入ると神聖で禁欲的な空気を感じるんですよね。
中世の雰囲気を満喫することができました。それにしてもいい天気過ぎて暑かったです。