When visiting Gordes, you are just a stone’s throw away from Abbaye de Senanque… so why not include that in your daytrip?! Let me tell you more about our visit…

The Abbaye de Senanque is well-known for the lavender fields in front of the Cistercian abbaye. Unfortunately when we visited, it was still way before the lavender was in bloom, but I can imagine that the soft purple colour of the lavender and the robust, grey building complement eachother perfectly…

The abbaye is only a 15 minute drive from Gordes and it lies in a very serene spot. I was glad that it wasn’t too crowded when we visited.

The abbaye was built in the 12th century and soon a thriving community of monks lived in and around the abbaye. At the end of the 18th century however, only 2 monks remained and the abbaye was sold to the state.

In the middle of the 19th century, the abbaye was bought by a clergyman and soon was inhabited by monks again. Up until this day, monks live, work and pray in the abbaye.

Visitors are welcome in the Abbaye. We paid our entrance fee and visited the abbaye on our own, but I’d advice you to follow a guided tour or make use of the histopads (they didn’t offer us a histopad during our visit, so I guess those are relatively new!) as that will give you lots of information about the place you are visiting. Now it was just a bit disappointing to be honest.

In the abbaye there’s also a shop, which sells lots of locally made products like biscuits, soap, fragrances, oil,…

Have you ever visited Abbaye de Senanque? Let me know in the comments!

Love, Kathleen

(Can you spot my husband and daughter in the picture below 🙂 ?)