The One That Got Away

Two days a week, DeeDee goes to the crèche in Montauroux for some, ahem, French cultural enlightenment, and we try to do the same. Usually our outings involve a big delicious, long, French lunch somewhere, earned by first touring some site of local significance.

On this day, we found ourselves at the Abbaye de Thoronet, one of the 3 “sister abbeys” in Provence. It was probably one of the frostiest mornings we have had all winter. Clear blue skies, but finger-freezing, breath-showing cold.

In 1136 a group of Cistercian monks traveled to this part of Provence to establish a monastery at Tourtour. In a wooded site near Lorgues, the monks began their backbreaking construction of the abbey of Notre-Dame-du-Thoronet in 1160, and completed it by 1190.

Since we were the only other people there at the time, we were kindly invited by some teachers to join a guided tour of the abbey with their schoolgroup. During the tour, three or four boys were hauled off to the side by their teacher to be lectured about their inappropriate behaviour. Good thing Dave did not get caught by Mme, when he was mocking the medieval religious carvings. Some things never change.