Marmagne to Flavigny: My favorite abbey and a hilltop village

May 30, 2022

Our hostess, a petite woman in her seventies, served us a breakfast with strawberries from her garden and home made jam. While we had breakfast, her dogs dozed in front of our door and she busied herself in the garden. I am not good at getting people pictures, and when I hesitantly asked if we could take her picture in front of the cabotte, she was reluctant. She said she wasn't pretty, and only agreed when we let her take a picture of us as well. She was a delightful person, too bad our visit with her was so short.

Our first destination for the day was a visit to the Abbey of Fontenay. Even if I did write yesterday that we are not on a culture tour, Fontenay is a place I wouldn't want to pass by. Of the three Romanesque abbeys we visited on our trip, this is my favorite. Its pure, unadorned architecture exemplifies the ideals of the Cistercian order .

The Abbey of Fontenay was founded by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in 1118. It is one of the oldest and most complete Cistercian abbeys in Europe, and in 1981, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A selection of the many pictures I took, almost all of the captions are borrowed from internet sources

Almost every building of the original complex survives: the church, dormitory, chapter house caldarium, refectory, dovecote and forge.

The Abbey’s church is classic Romanesque, featuring a symmetrical plan, with thick stone walls and massive cruciform piers sustaining high, large barrel vaults consisting of pointed arches.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux believed that only light itself should enliven the church. He also chose to site the windows according to numerical ratios corresponding to musical harmony.

To the left Joseph and Mary, exhausted from their travails, rest while the baby sleeps in the manger where a cow and a donkey are feeding. To the right the adoration of the Magi is depicted, one king kneeling and kissing the baby's feet.

An austere dormitory for the monks, and certainly cold in the winter.

Cistercians believed that “work is prayer” and their abbeys became centers for technological progress in the Middle Ages, making significant advances in agriculture and in metallurgy.

At Fontenay, the forge, water wheel and mill pond– along with the building that houses them– are as strikingly beautiful and simple as the church itself.

Time to get back on our bikes and make our way to the bike path along the canal that would take us almost to our destination for the day. But not quite. Flavigny is located on a hill top accessed by a steep but quiet road. No wonder it is quiet, Flavigny has a population of less than 200. It is a popular tourist destination but fortunately it was too early in the season for this to be apparent.

More sun, a wonderful sky and still that cold wind that has been accompanying us for days.

After the short and steep climb, we have a view to Flavigny.

We had only 31 km today and were in Flavigny around noon. Check-in at our B&B was at five. Flavigny is a pretty town but five hours was more than enough to see everything it had to offer.

Flavigny sits high on a rock and is listed as one of the most beautiful villages in France. The origin of the town goes back to the eighth century. It was constructed around a Benedictine Abbey founded in the year 719. The Abbey is still present but part of it is used now as a factory producing Anise pastilles.

We were tired. In spite of the short distance, and the three-kilometer climb wasn't that taxing either, we were fatigued, probably from the cold wind of the past days. But, yes, we did visit the factory, now a museum, and even bought some anise pastilles to bring home to our kind and friendly neighbors who empty our mailbox and water my plants in our absence.

We spent a while here with coffee and tea, killing time.

Well kept streets and houses in one of the "plus belles villes de france"

The facade of the shop used when filming "Le Chocolat", now for sale.

At five o'clock sharp we rang the bell of our B&B. Our host appeared immediately and we received a cordial welcome. Janos was a bit apprehensive about staying at another B&B. As charming as yesterday's hostess was, I must admit the place was run down, the plumbing old and all with a bit of a musty odor. Today's B&B was quite the opposite. An old stone house had been in the course of four years of hard work, completely restored. The original stone floors and wooden beams had been retained, the rest was new and elegantly furnished.

Have we learned our lesson yet that we should always have some provisions in our panniers, just in case? I guess not. Although there were three simple restaurants in Flavigny, none of them were open in the evening. Our host and his wife made telephone calls for us, even went to the restaurants to check, but there was nothing, nada, niente, nichts. We weren't going to ride down the hill again, either.

Our hosts suggested a solution: would we like a simple three-course meal that they could prepare for us? They would ask 15 Euros per head. Well, yes! They served tabouleh for a starter, then ratatouille and steak, followed by a cheese course, yoghurt as dessert, and a rose wine accompanied the meal . What wonderful, kind and competent hosts.

That was indeed a happy end for the day.

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Today's ride: 31 km (19 miles)
Total: 475 km (295 miles)

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