Abbey of Île-Chauvet is a former Benedictine monastery of the first half of the twelfth century that once took place in the Marches of Brittany and Poitou. It suffered from the Hundred Years War at the end of the fourteenth century, then a major fire in the late sixteenth before being rebuilt in the first half of the seventeenth century. It is sold as national property in 1791 before falling into disuse.
All that remains today is the remains of the original church, including a beautiful porch with four arches resting on small columns with carved capitals. It is also possible to admire the font, two buildings of the twelfth century, and a Gothic well installed in the center of the old cloister. Open to the public during the summer season, it reveals a very beautiful green setting where it is good to stroll on sunny days.
In August, the abbey hosts a very pleasant musical festival.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.