Martin M. Miles' photos with the keyword: Dourgne

After the break at the Abbaye Saint Benoît I continued west - and after only 500 meters entered Abbaye Sainte Scholastique. The combination of a Benedictine monasteries and a Benedictine nunnery was pretty common in history. Cluny was a double monastery, St. Ulrich founded by Ulrich of Cluny in the Black Forest had the nunnery in Bollschweil and Einsiedeln in Switzerland was a double monastery as well. Here is the combination of an abbey dedicated to St. Benedict (Benoit) and one for Scholastica (Scholastique). Scholastica was Benedicts sister - and both meanwhile are a bit disputed. Few historians claim, that they are not historic persons, but idealistic role-models. One of the authors supporting this is Herbert Illig, creator of the "Phantom time hypothesis", a conspiracy theory proposing that the Early Middle Ages (614–911) did not exist. Never existed. All is misrepresentation, misinterpretation and forgery..... Thinking about Benedict and Scholastica, I entered the abbey to ask for a "tampon" - but I ended up in a kind of labyrinth. There were locked doors and long hallways, but no persons. But that may be as well a misinterpretation, as the nuns do have a website benedictines-dourgne.org/

Though I could see the steeples of the abbey for quite some time, I lost my way and walked a "detour". The abbey is pretty large and pretty young (for a Benedictian monastery). It was founded in 1890 - and by now offer spiritual exercises. obviously very succesfull, as the car park was full. From my booklet, I knew, that they even offer rooms for "pelerins", but when I reached it, the people at the reception were too busy. As it was a nice day - and still afternoon, I changed my plans, asked for the "tampon" and left. They do have a nice website www.encalcat.com/