Abbaye Notre-Dame de Cîteaux, berceau de l'ordre cistercien

Saint-Nicolas-lès-Cîteaux

The entire Cistercian order — Fontenay, Pontigny, Clairvaux and more than five hundred abbeys across Europe — was born here, in a damp, wooded plain between vineyards and the Saône. In 1098, Robert of Molesme and a handful of monks seeking a poorer life more faithful to the Rule of Saint Benedict settled at the "New Monastery." The beginnings were harsh: the community struggled on under Robert, then Alberic, then the Englishman Stephen Harding. The turning point came in spring 1113, when a twenty-two-year-old Burgundian nobleman knocked at the door with about thirty companions, relatives and friends he had brought along: Bernard, future abbot of Clairvaux, future Saint Bernard. Under his impulse, Cîteaux spread throughout Christendom; by the end of the 12th century, the order counted more than five hundred monasteries, all placed under the patronage of the Virgin Mary. The Revolution drove out the monks and scattered the buildings; monastic life resumed in 1898, and some twenty Trappist brothers live at Cîteaux today to the rhythm of prayer and work — including the making of the famous Cîteaux cheese, from the milk of the estate's Montbéliarde cows. The guided tour crosses the chapter house, the library with its ceramic decoration and the copyists' cloister: few ancient stones, but a wellspring of a place, where one senses that a simple desire for silence and poverty, more than nine centuries ago, reshaped the spiritual and agricultural landscape of Europe.

Getting there : Between Nuits-Saint-Georges and Saint-Jean-de-Losne (D996). Guided tour only (about 1h15, booking required); monastery shop open year-round (Cîteaux cheese, honey); services open to all. Coordinates on the abbey.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound