Favourite Places : Fontevraud - part 1

View from the Abbey

Fontevraud is a remarkable story of survival and development - the building as well as, at times, the people within it.  A religious building, 1101-1792, it is inextricably linked to the Plantagenet dynasty of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry ll. A prison, 1804 - 1963, it housed one of the toughest and harshest regimes within the French penal system and provided the setting for Jean Genet's Miracle of the Rose. A cultural centre since 1975, with Unesco World Heritage status, Fontevraud undertakes an extensive assortment of lectures, concerts, exhibitions, guided tours, films, conservation initiatives, installations, heritage projects, through which to reveal and explain its past, including visits underground as well as overground. 

Henry ll

The wide-ranging programming also helps to support the future, including exceptionally innovative one-off events, that have established Fontevraud as a site of creative as well as historical excellence. We love it and go regularly in all seasons. If friends are staying, we are always delighted to take them for a visit. Funding is continuously pumped into Fontevraud which given the age and nature of the site, must always need repairing somewhere. However there is a clear but careful eye to the commercial. So as well as restaurants, cafés and a very good shop in the main reception, there is also a hotel in the grounds, which blends in well with everything else, and from what we can tell is good and not overly expensive. 

From the garden

As a photographer, Fontevraud is a constant delight. There are so many choices of shot: landscape, flora, architecture, texture, macro. No matter that we've been loads of times, there is always a new aspect to be discovered. Light of course changes everything, so it's been intriguing for me to repeat a shot from time to time, as the mood is so different between seasons. 

Cravant is about a thirty minute drive away. That and having an annual season ticket, which is very well priced means the idea of 'popping across' to Fontevraud is so easy, and it's something we've done during the day, in the evening and late at night, for one of the extended openings that Fontevraud organises during the summer season. As a result I've had some great photo opportunities.

The first time we went in the evening was a couple of years ago as part of a special event called À Table, which was held just on Saturdays throughout July and August. During the day, there were all sorts of family friendly activities. But each Saturday evening, a differently themed dinner party took place in the refectory, which had in the past been the eating area for inmates. There were 200 people for each of the dinners. Tickets were Euros 25 per person each time, including drinks. We went to two dinners - the opening event and one called The Mechanical Dinner.

A-frame delivering food

Dinner 1: Just for the opening event, a separate area had been set up in the cloisters, serving champagne and apéros. We then went into the refectory, a long, wide-ish room where two sets of 'railway styled tracks' had been specially inserted into the floor. Just inside the entrance was a massive wooden A-frame shaped structure with 5 levels, on which waiting staff were standing, to greet us as we came in. We all sat where we wanted to, along four lines of trestle tables, that stretched from one end of the refectory to the other. Once we were all seated, the A-frame was pushed manually, from the entrance to the other end by the waiters, along the sets of tracks, between which we were all seated. At the other end of the room was the kitchen where all the food had been freshly prepared. The A-frame was then loaded directly from the kitchen with the first course, and pushed back towards the entrance slowly enough, so that each individual starter could be lowered, directly on to the plate of each diner as it went along. Every dish was served in this way - all three courses. Each one was wrapped differently for presentation. It was mesmerizing. The food was wonderful and the waiting staff were stunning.

Mechanical pepper delivery

Dinner 2: This event had been designed by the French team who had masterminded the mechanical elephant. The A-frame this time was stationary at the entrance end, and used just as a seating area for about twenty five musicians, who played throughout the evening. Tables were all in the same position as dinner 1. Each setting had a mini candelabra in front of it, holding all the cutlery and wine glasses you'd be using in place, by individual clips, for the meal . You could choose your meal to be served ordinarily or mechanically. In the photo a guest had requested pepper - mechanically. So a waiter, in a harness attached by extended arm to a Meccano type pulley system, was pushed manually into position directly to the side of the guest. Once in position, the waiter then manoeuvred himself, by a control button, upside down (as in the photo), so that he was directly over the plate. Then with another button he controlled the pepper mill so that it grated pepper on to the dish exactly where the guest wanted it. I asked for a bread roll to be delivered mechanically. This required a waiter to go to the opposite side of the room with a mechanized hand-sling. He wound up the tension, then fired, which launched the roll across to me, over the heads of the other diners. I of course had the responsibility of catching it. I am proud to announce I was successful. The Mechanical Dinner was an evening of total madness and ingenuity, absolutely hilarious and pure spectacle. . . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErAtMvXDPFw
 (you tube extract from daytime events just before the mechanical dinner)


Coming next: Night time at Fontevraud

www.abbayedefontevraud.com