Abbaye Notre-Dame d'Orval

Villers-devant-Orval (Florenville)

Benedictines settled in the 11th century beside a spring, in an isolated valley of the Ardennes forest; the abbey passed to the Cistercian order in 1131 with the arrival of monks from Trois-Fontaines. Its position on the border between the Holy Roman Empire and the kingdom of France exposed it to every conflict from the 15th to the 17th century, before a period of great expansion in the 17th and 18th centuries — shaken by a Jansenist crisis — and then dispersal at the Revolution.

Getting there : Ruins and museum, admission charge; the inhabited abbey cannot be visited

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

Ambient sound