We met our tour group at Charles De Gaulle Airport outside of Paris. We were touring with the Missouri Botanical Garden, so we easily spotted the director, Peter Wyse Jackson and his wife Diane who were our hosts for the trip to Ireland last year. We knew a few of our fellow travelers from the Ireland trip and other Garden activities and enjoyed getting to meet new people.
Rick was fascinated by the cool-looking airport control towers at De Gaulle airport and took a photo of one out the window of our bus.
Our first stop on the tour was Royaumont Abbey. This medieval Cistercian abbey was a wonderfully calm and peaceful place after our already long day of travel. The site hasn’t been an abbey since the French Revolution. Some of the buildings, particularly the church, were demolished to reclaim the stones. Today, Royaumont Abbey is a cultural center used for concerts and weddings. Here’s the official website in English: Fondation Royaumont.
The remaining buildings of Abbaye du Royaumont.
The chattering room where the monks were allowed to speak and held meetings. It’s now a library and archive for research.
This tower is a remaining structure from the church which is now in ruins, most of the stones were reclaimed for new buildings after the French Revolution.
The medieval garden at Royaumont Abbey is planted in square raised beds. A new theme is chosen every three years. We saw the new installation of plants believed to have magical or symbolic properties.
I put many more photos from our visit to Royaumant Abbey on Flickr: Joy’s Photostream.
While I wasn’t blogging much in the last month, Saturday Snapshot moved from At Home With Books to West Metro Mommy Reads. Check out Melinda’s interest in a fun community college class and other photos around the web at her Saturday Snapshot post today: Saturday Snapshot – June 8.
I intend to post my France photos on Mondays (for Dreaming of France), Wednesdays (for Wordless Wednesday), and on Saturdays (for Saturday Snapshot) for the next several weeks.
