Our Blog - Lavender fields at Sénanque Abbey near Gordes, France

We happened to be going through a prime Lavender area during semi-prime Lavender season! We had been to this abbey before, many years ago, to see the lavender fields and so we headed back there again. The Abbey of Sénanque was founded in 1148 by a dozen of Cistercians monks coming from the monastery of Mazan, located in Ardèche. Notre Dame de Sénanque was the fourth Cistercian abbey founded in Provence. The construction of the Abbey ended in the 1220’s, after around 60 years of work. The situation of the Abbey started to deteriorate at the beginning of the 15th century and by 1439, there were only 3 monks still there and in 1781, the last monk still here died.

It was then sold to a private individual who removed all exterior religious signs, it order to protect the property. In 1854, a new community of monks moved in. The buildings were renovated and soon, there were 72 monks living here. However, in 1881, the monks were evicted with only 3 people being allowed to remain to look after the buildings. In 1882, it was sold again as private property and soon after that, the monks came back discreetly, with agreement from the new owner.

You can visit the Abbey (both guided and unguided) and they have a guest house that welcomes individuals for spiritual retreats. They also have a shop which sells various products, many of which are linked to the lavender fields.

Here you can see one of the several lavender fields with the abbey in the background. You can see the scaffolding as well, with about 1/2 of the abbey having some work done.

And the lavender fields going the other direction, with the hills in the background.

Close-ups of the lavender ...

Our attempt to get a good picture of Susan and Lucy in the fields ....

So, we have no idea what type of moth or butterfly these things are, but there are literally thousands of them. A semi-closeup of one, and then I tried to get a video that showed them all.