Bourgueil Abbey

 Yesterday, I visited the museum of Bourgueil Abbey. Bougueil in a French town located in Tourraine, in a very touristic area, in the Loire Valley.

For those of you who like historical datas, here is what I copied from Wikipedia :

"Bourgueil Abbey (more precisely the abbaye Saint-Pierre de Bourgueil-en-Vallée) was a Benedictine monastery in France (current Indre-et-Loire), founded in 990. It was located at Bourgueil, in historic Anjou and the diocese of Angers. The founder was Emma, countess of Blois, daughter of Theobald I of Blois, and duchess of Aquitaine. It later (1630) was attached to the Congregation of Saint-Maur.

History

Bourgueil was a mansio set up on the Roman main road from Angers to Tours. Other Roman routes converged on Burgolium. Before 977, these lands belonged to Thibaut I of Blois. He gave them as dowry for his daughter Emma.. At this point a priory already existed at Bourgueil.

Emma of Blois, tired of her philandering husband William IV of Aquitaine (935-995), and particularly with his liaison with Aldéarde of Thouars, wife of Herbert I of Thouars, had her rival beaten up and raped.. Emma then fled with her young son, the future William V of Aquitaine, to her brother Odo I, Count of Blois at the château de Chinon. The penitent Emma founded the Abbey in 990, near Chinon. The family was pious and Eudes was a lay abbot of Saint-Martin de Tours and Marmoutier. There were also political reasons, in the Loire region, for the family to stand up to Hugh Capet."

Bougueil used to be beautiful until French Revolution. The Abbay was invade and invaders destructed a big part of it and removed everything with any religious relationship. The only part they did not come into was the hospital part.

Here are the photos I took :

 This is a map of what it looked like in the past.

 Outside.

 Inside the cloister.

 Scuptures in the wooden pannels inside the abbey.

 These stairs are unique in Europe. No pilar to hold them. Just a clever way to pile the stones.