Nun's Gallery

I took the girls into Saintes again, as we didn't have time to visit the Abbaye aux Dames yesterday. We climbed right up to the roof where there was a fig tree growing in a crack in the wall, saw where the pigeons roost in the dome, and explored the small spiral staircase which sick and elderly nuns used to access this gallery, to save them going outside.
It looks immediately down on the altar, but we were surprised that anyone sick or elderly could even make it up and down that staircase!
When we got home I was stung by a bee on my foot, ouch.