Sanctuaire Notre-Dame de Sarrance

Sarrance

Sarrance calls itself the oldest Marian sanctuary in the Pyrenees, and everything there begins with a shepherd's tale. One of his bulls kept escaping from the herd; following it, the shepherd saw it swim across the gave and then kneel at the foot of a large stone bearing a statue of the Virgin. From this discovery, placed in the late 12th century, came the title of Notre-Dame de la Pierre and a pilgrimage that has never been interrupted. In 1314, the Premonstratensian canons regular settled on the banks of the gave and made the priory as much a mountain way-station as a place of devotion. Louis XI came here around 1463, both as a pilgrim and as an inspector of the Pyrenean frontier. Marguerite de Navarre chose the abbey as the setting for the frame story of her Heptameron: her storytellers, cut off by the flooding of the gaves, wait there for a bridge to be rebuilt and fill the waiting by telling tales. The monastery, long deserted, regained a Premonstratensian community in September 2011, and an ecomuseum in the village is entirely devoted to the legend of the bull.

La légende — Prieuré de Sarrance ↗

Getting there : On the N134 in the Aspe valley, 18 km from Oloron-Sainte-Marie and some fifty kilometres from Pau; the monastery stands beside the road through the village. Church, cloister and an ecomuseum devoted to the legend can be visited; monastic guesthouse on site. The main pilgrimage takes place on the first Sunday of September, linked to the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin on 8 September. Coordinates given at village level — a village of only about 155 inhabitants that takes a few minutes to walk through.

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

Ambient sound