Flavigny-sur-Ozerain

What you will see

Enter through the Porte du Val, a 13th-century inner gate paired with a 16th-century outer one, or the 15th-century Porte du Bourg with its statue of the Virgin. Inside, lanes of pale stone houses lead to the church of Saint-Genest, built in the 13th century, with carved 16th-century choir stalls and a Gothic gallery. The scent of aniseed drifts from the old abbey. From the edge of the spur, views open over the surrounding valleys.

History

A lord named Wideradus founded a Benedictine abbey here in 719. In the 860s the monks brought the relics of Saint Reine from nearby Alise to protect them from Viking raids, and Pope John VIII consecrated the abbey church in 878. Pilgrims came in large numbers, and a town grew up around the abbey. In the 12th and 13th centuries it was ringed with walls, and large sections still stand.

Flavigny changed hands during the Hundred Years' War, when English troops took and held it. Ursuline nuns founded a convent here in 1632. By the Revolution the abbey had only a handful of monks, and its church was probably already in ruins, but the parish church and the town walls survived. In 2000 parts of the film Chocolat, starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, were shot in the village streets.