A large monastic city founded at the beginning of the 12th century and transformed partly over the centuries, the Royal Abbey of Fontevraud is one of the largest in Europe. Thirty-six abbesses, half royal blood, succeeded each other at the head of this double order from 1115 to 1792, and Robert d'Arbrissel, the founder, had wished it. The last four daughters of Louis XV were raised at the Abbey. In 1804, Napoleon decides to transform the Abbey into prison: seven century of monastic screw succeeds a century and a half of prison life. Today, the Abbey develops actions that link heritage and modernity.
To see: the polychrome beds of the Plantagenet kings (Henri II, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard Coeur de Lion and Isabelle d'Angoulême) in the abbey church, the octagonal Romanesque cuisine unique in France, the chapter house and its murals, The gardens of the Middle Ages ...
