Lunch at the Abbey

The Abbey of Saint Martin de Canigou is home to a religious order of fifteen monks, nuns and lay people called the Community of the Beatitudes. Our congregation had a long-standing invitation to join them for lunch and a tour around the Abbey. Some went up in 4x4s but a group of us decided to make the steep half hour climb through the woods to join them. It was a beautiful day both in terms of the weather and the warmth of the reception we received. We had a simple meal of an egg salad followed by duck thighs and haricot beans followed by cake and coffee. The visit after the meal was also very interesting as the Abbey goes back to the 11th century and was completely restored in the early 20th century having been abandoned for nearly 200 years. A lot of the stonework and artefacts had been looted but an appeal to the local community produced results and many important objects including pillars, friezes and capitols were returned.