Abbaye de l'Escaladieu

Bonnemazon

On the road along the Pyrenean foothills that led pilgrims towards Santiago de Compostela, the abbey of L'Escaladieu, founded in 1142 after a first unsuccessful attempt at Capadour, offered rest and comfort to walkers exhausted by the crossing of the mountain foothills. This strategic position, so precious in peacetime, turned against it during the Wars of Religion: in the 16th century, the Protestant troops of the Count of Montgomery besieged the abbey three times, causing damage judged irreparable at the time — the choir gutted, the porch destroyed, the lay brothers' building ravaged. Yet L'Escaladieu survived, rose again, and preserves to this day an abbey church remarkable for its pointed barrel vault and for acoustics so pure that they still enchant visitors eight centuries after its construction. After the Revolution and decades of agricultural use, the abbey enjoyed a second rebirth in 1997, when the Conseil général of Hautes-Pyrénées acquired it and embarked on a long-term restoration. Now a leading cultural venue of the département, it hosts concerts, exhibitions and lectures beneath its Southern Gothic vaults, where stone and brick alternate with rare elegance — perpetuating, in secular form, the vocation of welcome and gathering that was its own from the first pilgrims of the Middle Ages.

Getting there : Commune of Bonnemazon, at the foot of the Pyrenees, near Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Hautes-Pyrénées; open to visitors, concerts and exhibitions

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

Ambient sound