Abbaye Saint-Martin-du-Canigou — Attraction in Prades

This Abbey sits on a hill surrounded by other hills. The views from it are absolutely breathtaking.

A steep winding road leads up to it, which is well kept. In the warm weather the walk up to it from the village certainly gives you a workout but you can stop to admire the view when needed. We took a small rucksack with chilled water which helped the journey considerably.

Tickets for adult entry are 6€ , not sure about the cost for children. At entry they give you one of the patrimoine pass leaflets with an Abbey stamp on it.

If you take this patrimoine pass leaflet to each historic location listed in the brochure that you wish to visit, you are given a slight reduction on entry price for yourself and one other person. Sometimes only 50 cents or a euro reduction, but if you are visiting several places during your stay in the region it is worth it. The pass lasts until 2020.

A guided tour of the Abbey is included in the price. Tour is in French but there are helpful leaflets in several other languages including English. I think these are in the shop area where the entry tickets are bought.

It is an interesting, but short tour by volunteer guides. History of the restored parts of the building . Attractive to look at building , small interior garden areas, look at pillars in close detail and the meanings of several figures on them. Engaging young female guide who was clearly passionate about the area.

This is a reasonably short tour, useful to remember it is a working religious community therefore many areas are closed to the public. Whilst walking through the areas that were accessible, it gives a flavour of how peaceful life must be in this building deep in the hills yet surrounded by other higher hills and only accessible by its steep approach road.

On our walk up we passed volunteers (scouts) cutting up wood for the abbey. The abbey still has areas it needs to restore and therefore needs volunteers to do various tasks as well as looking for further donations. More details on the website.

Guides on the tours are volunteers, small box for donations for your guide near the end of the tour. Small box in same general area for donations for the Abbey too, so double check you have the one you wish to contribute to before you do so.

Retreats are offered in the winter months so if you wanted to experience a few days of quiet surrounded by amazing hills etc here is your chance!

Worth a visit for the...

A fantastic place to visit filled with amazing views and history. We parked in Parking Abbaye Avall, which was free and also had toilets. The track is very good, mostly concrete and about half of it is shaded. It was quite hot on the day we visited in August and we stopped a few times for a brief rest and a drink. We saw lots of small lizards on the way! The walk up took us about 35 minutes. It was steep but if you are reasonably healthy you should be fine - we saw people pushing children up the track in push chairs! You can always book a 4x4 vehicle pick up if needed. You buy a ticket at the gift shop and that is the only way to get inside the Abbey. The nun who served us spoke good English and the gift shop had some lovely items, many locally made. The tour of the Abbey was in French but we had a guide in English and it’s available in several other languages. The Abbey was beautiful and there was ample opportunity to explore and take photos during the guided tour. Afterwards we walked to the viewing point, which is clearly marked on the way back to the gift shop. That only took about 5 minutes and the view was spectacular. Outside the gift shop is an area where people can eat packed lunches and there is a clean, reasonably sized toilet block too. This was the highlight of our trip and definitely a place to visit if you are...

Abbaye Saint-Martin-du-Canigou • 📍 - 66820 Casteil, France • The abbey of Saint-Martin-du-Canigou is a monastery built in 1009 in the Pyrenees of Northern Catalonia on Canigou mountain in present-day southern France near the Spanish border. Pau Casals wrote a composition entitled "Sant Martí del Canigó" for Orchestra. • • #the360Travel #travel #travelgram #travelling #traveladdict #travelphotography #holiday #holidayseason #beautifuldestinations #wonderful_places #wonderfulplaces #wanderlust #travelgoals #vacation #travelaroundtheworld #instatravel #traveltheworld #landscape #landscapelovers #beautiful #travelawesome #nature #naturephotography...