The Abbey in St. Hilaire

St. Hilaire Abbey

 Things are winding down here in our French home exchange.  We'll be heading for Holland on Sunday so we are taking it pretty easy until then.  But, not far from Magrie, is the tiny village of St. Hilaire.  There is a lovely 11th to 14th century Benedictine abbey that we thought we would toddle over to view. (The first chapel there was even before that - like maybe the 10th century, if you can imagine that long ago).  The trip was scenic and short.  However, we made the grave mistake of arriving there at 11:45 a.m. when the Abbey closes at 12:00 for a 2 hour lunch break and we were told that it takes 30 minutes to take the tour.  Oh well.  We saw the lovely grounds of the abbey but didn't get to go into the church which is really what I wanted to see - the sarcophagus of St. Sernin, the first Bishop of Toulouse.  It is a beautiful piece (which I only know from looking it up on the Internet).  Instead we walked the streets of St. Hilaire and took pictures which is always a great pleasure for me, especially on a picture perfect day like today is.  HERE ARE THE PICTURES.

By the way, supposedly the Benedictine monks of St. Hilaire discovered Blanquette - the sweet bubbly wine which is so much in abundance here, made from the little sweet green grapes.  I really love the mental image of these monks discovering bubbly wine, don't you?

Benedictine Monk with his Blanquette in St. Hilaire

We debated whether to have lunch in St. Hilaire or not and decided instead to stop at LeClerc and buy some salmon to cook at home.  We did and we're glad we did - it was delicious and we enjoyed it with a lovely fresh salad, French bread and a nice bottle of St. Hilaire chardonney.  Who could ask for more?