Abbaye St. Martin du Canigou

Monday September 24, 2007
Sorry about the lack of pics here. Blogger won't presently upload any pics.
Today was our religious experience. We may have missed the mark by one day, but we did spend the day at two abbeys in the Pyrenees. We began the day by visiting the boulangerie truck that travels through Fraisse every morning. I think we made a lot of people in the lower village unhappy, since as unregular customers we bought a fair bit of his product – croissants, baguettes, etc. Our drive today took us down the highway to Andorra. For the most part this is an easy drive as it heads up through the valley into the Pyrenees. The prime peak in this area is Canigou at 2800m and it sat atop our first destination that was Abbaye St. Martin de Canigou. We drove up the valley as far as was possible and then had to head out on foot for a relatively steep climb of 1.6 km to the Abbaye. This walk took 30 minutes for us but we seemed to ascend quickly compared to many. It’s definitely not a destination for the faint of heart.

Once at the site, we were obliged to take the group tour in French. Since we’d already read about the abbey in English, we understood most of the tour. This 1000 year old abbey that only felt in disuse in the 1800’s but was totally restored in the late 1900’s, is now being inhabited by a rather unorthodox sect of Catholics consisting of men and women, some celibate and some in families. Whatever, they have set out to maintain this site for posterity. Our tour through the facility was actually led by a member of the Beatitudes, the sect living here. We were totally amazed by what had been built on this site so long ago and asked each other what would possess them to build here in the first place.

Finishing with St. Martin, we headed into Prades where we got a phone call from Jessie telling us that there was an offer on Aaron’s house. Good news! We then moved on to the next valley to the St. Miquel Abbey, a much more accessible location. We were blessed this day with very warm temps and clear skies, so although Canigou itself was never totally visible, the vistas were exceptional. Following our touring, we headed back to Fraisse where we visited our wine & produce merchant from last night. Then, Tony made a mushroom risotto while I grilled sardines and another local white fish and we had yet another wonderful feast. The days definitely go too quickly here, but we have a plan for the remainder of our time in the south and all we need now is agreeable weather.