endlessrarities | The Abbey of Caunes Minervois

To France, now...

Now, I don't know about you guys, but whenever anyone mentions 'Minervois', I always think red wine...

But there's more too it than that, though unfortunately I don't have a guidebook to this one...

It's another extremely well-preserved medieval abbey in the town of Caunes-Minervois (Minervois being the district...). Unfortunately, I missed taking a shot from its best angle - it's got a glorious apsidal-ended church with Romanesque carving around its windows, and I clean forgot to take a picture, possibly because it was just so gorgeous...

Anyway, it's firmly Romanesque in character, which puts it in the 11th/12th century period, if I remember right. Here's the bell tower:-

And a view of the nave. Those lancet windows next to the south door look slightly later - I suspect this part of the building has been extended outwards:-

You will note that there are no windows - this is a very chunky, austere structure typical of Romanesque style churches.

And a close-up of the doorway, with its carving, which just shows that this place isn't quite as austere as it pretends to be. The windows on the apsidal east end were really beautifully carved, but I can't share that with you, unfortunately, because I didn't take a picture. Sorry...