Abbaye de Silvacane

La Roque-d'Anthéron

Its name comes from "silva cannorum", the forest of reeds that then lined the marshy banks of the Durance. It was there, in 1144, that a handful of monks from the distant abbey of Morimond, in Burgundy, settled under the leadership of Abbot Otho — half-brother, it is said, of the German emperor Conrad III. The site, harsh and damp, forced the lay brothers into titanic drainage works before the abbey church could rise, an unexpected marriage of Romanesque rigour and nascent Gothic innovations. But Silvacane's prosperity was short-lived: the sack of 1358, the devastating frost of 1364, then the catastrophic flood of the Durance in 1440, which carried off part of the buildings. Attached in 1450 to the cathedral chapter of Aix-en-Provence, the abbey became a simple parish church, saved in spite of itself from complete destruction but stripped of its monastic vocation for nearly five centuries. Bought by the State in 1846 and restored from 1950, it has today recovered its calling as a great spiritual and cultural site: every summer, its bare stones ring with the concerts of the International Piano Festival of La Roque-d'Anthéron, one of the most prestigious in Europe, as if music had at last come to fill the silence of the vanished monks.

Getting there : 2 km east of La Roque-d'Anthéron, 15 km from Aix-en-Provence; open to visitors all year round

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

Ambient sound