Conques

We arrived in Conques, a beautiful and wonderfully preserved medieval town, to find the road Jerome would normally take to drop us off near the hotel blocked by an automatic gate. Following some intense discussion with the gate guard, we were turned away and instructed to drive around to the other side of Conques to enter. Here we were also faced with a gate blocking the way, with only local cars allowed to enter. Jerome tried calling our hotel but it was closed till 3.30pm - only the French would leave reception unstaffed for 2 hours! He then rang the Tourism office who advised him to take a ticket to open the gate and drive to the hotel and wait for it to reopen.

Conques is a beautiful city that dates back to before the 9th century, but acquired notoriety in the 9th century when a monk transferred (borrowed) the remains of Sainte Foy from Agen to Conques. Sainte Foy (or Faith) is a saint who is said to have been a young girl of twelve from Agen in Aquitane. The story goes that she was arrested by the Romans for refusing to worship their Roman pagans, and was then executed. First they tried to burn her but legend says she was extinguished by a miraculous rain shower. In the end she was beheaded along with a number of other Christians who refused to renounce their faith.

As we had 90 minutes to kill, and it was pouring rain, we decided to find a bar and have a coffee and/or a beer. We also used this time to set up a group WhatsApp for L’Equipe d’Australie so that we could share photos, and it seems to be working (as long as I remember to share!)

Finally, the hotel reopened and we made a dash inside in the pouring rain. Once we had checked into our room, which was very nice indeed, with views of the church, we headed out for a bit of a wander. We found some lovely shops where several purchases were made!

Then it was time to meet up with our local guide, Anne, who gave us the history of Conques and the Saint Faith Abbey, which is quite an imposing structure. It also has a wonderfully maintained tympanum, it depicts Christ presiding over judgement of the souls of the deceased. Archangel Michael and a demon weigh the souls of the dead on a scale. The righteous go to Christ’s right, while the dammed go to the left where they are eaten by a Leviathan and excreted into Hell. (Ed - Mind you, the right side looked like more fun.) The tortures of Hell are vividly depicted, e.g. a poacher is roasted by the very rabbit he poached. The tympanum also provides an example of cloister wit, e.g. a bishop who governed the area of Conques but was not well liked by the monks is depicted as being caught in one of the nets of Hell. There was so much contained in the tympanum and it was so well preserved.

We were then taken inside for a tour around the interior - it is quite stark, but the size and scale is grand. The windows are quite modern. They were created by the French artist Pierre Soulages in 1986 - he designed and created 104 windows for the Abbey, using a specially developed glass formed of different pieces melded together. They look white but can take on different colours, depending on the light outside.

Following the tour of the Abbey we visited Saint-Foy’s treasure. This was a collection housed in the cloister area. The Treasure is one of the five greatest medieval goldsmith’s works of art in Europe, and the only French one to display so many elements from the Middle Ages. All the pieces are very ornate, made of gold or silver and covered in gemstones.

After the tour we had a bit of free time before meeting up for dinner at Le Charlemagne. Dinner was fabulous, although I ordered the pork and it came with Aligot, which was very nice, but too soon to eat it again as it is very rich. Following dinner, Bronwyn, Ian and I went back to the Abbey to hear one of the monks play a few tunes on the organ. There was quite a crowd there (mainly pilgrims). The acoustics were wonderful and we stayed to hear about four songs.Read more