Abbaye de Fontenay - Burgundy

Just a few miles down the road from the town of Montbard is the Abbey of Fontenay, founded in 1118 by Saint Bernard, making it one of the oldest Cistercian monasteries in Europe (it is also one of the most complete). Beautifully preserved in all of its original Romanesque glory, the abbey became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981 and boasts magnificent gardens which were completely redesigned just a few years ago by Englishman Peter Holmes. The monks that made Fontenay their home lived according to the Rule of Saint Benedict, that is to say humbly and in solitude. The abbey was flourishing up until the 16th century when abbots were no longer elected but appointed royally. By the French Revolution there remained only a handful of monks and soon after Fontenay was sold to Elie de Montgolfier, a descendant of the hot air balloon inventing brothers. It was turned into a paper mill and then in 1906 was bought by a banker from Lyon, Edouard Aynard, to whose family the site still belongs.

Arguably the focal point of Fontenay is the immense church which was funded almost entirely by Ebrard, Bishop of Norwich and dedicated to Pope Eugene III. Free of any decorative features so as not to cause distraction during prayer, it is surveyed by a statue of Notre-Dame de Fontenay, an excellent example of Burgundy statuary. Other highlights of the abbey include the cloister, whose four sides represent the soul, the body, manual work and intellectual work (the mind); the vaulted council room where reading and debates took place and from whose windows a young Coco Chanel is said to have drawn inspiration for her logo; and dovecote whose tower features walls over a metre in thickness. Also of note is the heating room which doubled up as a hairdressers and shoe shiners and the infirmary, away from the rest of the buildings, next to which the monks would grow medicinal plants to cure ailing colleagues. The forgery is perhaps the most interesting of the rooms to visit as it is something that one would not necessarily associate with the Cistercians. In fact they were quite the industrialists - the room once housed Europe's first hydraulic hammer which was used to make tools from iron they extracted themselves nearby. Not only did they sell surplus material but they also raised trout in the large pond next to the forge.