I have not yet visited the Palace of Versailles,but plan to do so tomorrow.
My intention today was to get as far as Paris, a 450km trip.I was able to stop half way, and deviate 30km off the motorway to visit Fontenay Abbey,in the depths of Burgundy, near Montbard. It is a Unesco world heritage site,and is a Cistercian monastery founded in 1118.Unlike the Cistercian monasteries in Britain,such as Tintern ,and Rievaux in Yorkshire ,it is not ruined, there having been no dissolution of the monasteries.It is in a typically beautiful and remote site that the Cistercians used to chose, by a river to run their mill,in a beautiful sheltered valley. Use as a monastery had faded out after the French Revolution, when the state eventually sold it. It was turned into a paper mill by one of the Montgolfier family (of ballooning fame), but was bought by a banker in 1906 who had all the factory removed and had the monastery fully restored. It also has very pleasant gardens, and has the peaceful beauty that you associate with the best National Trust places in the UK.Some of the buildings have been added in two or three hundred years ago,but all look smart.
My intention today was to get as far as Paris, a 450km trip.I was able to stop half way, and deviate 30km off the motorway to visit Fontenay Abbey,in the depths of Burgundy, near Montbard. It is a Unesco world heritage site,and is a Cistercian monastery founded in 1118.Unlike the Cistercian monasteries in Britain,such as Tintern ,and Rievaux in Yorkshire ,it is not ruined, there having been no dissolution of the monasteries.It is in a typically beautiful and remote site that the Cistercians used to chose, by a river to run their mill,in a beautiful sheltered valley. Use as a monastery had faded out after the French Revolution, when the state eventually sold it. It was turned into a paper mill by one of the Montgolfier family (of ballooning fame), but was bought by a banker in 1906 who had all the factory removed and had the monastery fully restored. It also has very pleasant gardens, and has the peaceful beauty that you associate with the best National Trust places in the UK.Some of the buildings have been added in two or three hundred years ago,but all look smart.
Fontenay Abbey.The Abbey church is to the left.
Fontenay Abbey.The gardens .
Fontenay Abbey .The cloisters
Fontenay Abbey. The abbey church
The motorway trip was incredibly easy. The French motorways seem to be some of the best, and are very empty, excepting around the fringes of Paris(where there are no tolls). But it has cost me 50 Euros to travel from the French border near Mulhouse to Paris. If you want to move quickly this is the way, but if I’d had the time I would have meandered more slowly on the lesser roads. At the campsite in a wood just a mile from Versailles palace("Huttopia"), I have found by far the largest collection of British people I’ve seen for quite a time.The campsite is pleasant,well equipped and even has a pool, but as it's in a wood,some careful manoeuvring around the trees was necessary to get into my allotted pitch. Some of the pitches would be almost impossible to get into with my van, let alone a larger van. One new arrival was left scratching his head for some considerable time planning a tortuous route into his pitch.
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