3661 - First of the Three Sisters: Abbaye de Silvacane


When you go to Provence, and when you love architecture and medieval art, and when you like monasteries and churches, in other words, when you are a lot like me, you have to visit the three big Cistercian monasteries. Silvacane is the first of them, located NNW of Aix-en-Provence.

Silvacane is not in use as a monastery any more. Its style is strictly Romanesque, colors and decorations are long gone.

This is not how those buildings have looked while they were in use. Medieval churches were painted in colors and richly decorated. Many of them still are, especially those that have not been used as horse stables or barracks, like it was the fate of so many of those buildings around and after the French Revolution.