Conques: our guide to visiting the Sainte-Foy abbey church and the village

A village clinging to its hillside, best discovered from above

When we take someone to Conques for the first time, we usually avoid heading straight for the village car park. We prefer a detour along the road overlooking the valley, towards Sénergues or the Bancarel viewpoint, so that our guests can discover the village from above before going down into it: the stone-slab roofs and half-timbered houses packed in an amphitheatre around the abbey church, where the Dourdou and the Ouche rivers meet. That is where the name comes from: Conca in Latin, "the shell", for this shell-like hollow set in the rock. The site is now protected as a Grand Site de France, "Conques Vallées Lot et Dourdou", and the village is listed among the "Most Beautiful Villages of France". But what strikes us most, living right next door, is that Conques has never stopped being a place of passage: almost every day you still meet pilgrims with backpacks on their way to Santiago de Compostela, just as in the Middle Ages.

We never tire of telling this pilgrimage story. It all begins at the end of the 8th century, when the hermit Dadon founded a small monastery in this remote valley. According to legend, a monk from Conques spent ten years at the abbey of Agen before stealing the relics of Saint Foy, a young 3rd-century martyr, and quietly bringing them back to Conques at the end of the 9th century. The miracles immediately attributed to these relics drew a flood of pilgrims that would shape the village's destiny for centuries, and which still explains why the abbey church looks so outsized compared with the village.

The Sainte-Foy abbey church, a masterpiece of Romanesque art

Faced with the growing number of pilgrims, Abbot Odolric began building an abbey church worthy of the occasion in 1041: a vast church with three naves and galleries, completed for the most part in the 11th and 12th centuries. Benedictine until 1537, then entrusted to secular canons, the abbey is now run by the Premonstratensian community, present in Conques since 1873; you sometimes meet its members in white habits on the square, between two services.

Our advice, if you only do one thing inside: look up. The interior is plain and bright, almost bare in places, which makes the carved decoration all the more striking when you come across it: some 250 Romanesque capitals, on two levels, run along the columns of the nave and the galleries. Many show biblical scenes or plant and animal motifs typical of Romanesque art in southern France. We still spot new ones after several visits.

The Last Judgement tympanum

It is the first thing we show our guests, on the west front: the Last Judgement tympanum, carved at the very beginning of the 12th century and considered one of the high points of Romanesque sculpture in Western Europe. Take the time to stand on the little square opposite, a few metres back: it is the best way to take in at a glance the 124 figures gathered around Christ in Majesty. On his right, the chosen rise to Paradise; on his left, the damned are hurled into the jaws of Hell, in scenes that were quite graphic for the time. We like spotting traces of the original paintwork, a reminder that the tympanum was once brightly coloured, almost a picture book for pilgrims who often could not read.

The treasury of Sainte-Foy

We always recommend adding the treasury to your visit, even though it is a separate paid ticket: it is one of the most important collections of medieval gold and silverwork preserved in France. Its centrepiece is the reliquary statue of Saint Foy, which takes a while to study in detail: a wooden figure covered in gold, set with precious stones, cameos and ancient gems accumulated through pilgrims' gifts over almost a thousand years. The treasury also holds reliquaries, processional crosses and liturgical objects, traces of the fervour that long surrounded this place of pilgrimage.

Pierre Soulages' contemporary stained-glass windows

Between 1987 and 1994, the Aveyron painter Pierre Soulages, born in Rodez, created a set of 104 windows for the abbey church, which now fill every opening. Rather than working with colour, the artist chose to work with light itself, through a textured translucent glass developed specially for the project, which filters and diffuses daylight without ever tinting it. It took us a while to really appreciate them: on a first visit you almost look for "the colours", then you come back another day, at another hour, and the light in the nave is no longer the same; that is the whole point. Breaking with the tradition of coloured windows, the result extends the restraint of the Romanesque architecture in a truly contemporary language. If the subject interests you, the Soulages museum in Rodez, about 40 minutes from the cottage, makes a good complement to the visit.

Conques, a major stop on the Way of St James

Listed since 1998 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the "Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France", the Sainte-Foy abbey church remains one of the most memorable stops on the Via Podiensis, the route linking Le Puy-en-Velay to the Spanish border. We regularly meet pilgrims on the small roads around the cottage, recognisable by the scallop shell hanging from their packs; do give them right of way, they still have a long way to go. Every evening, at the end of mass, they receive the traditional blessing before setting off again towards Figeac and Cahors. If you are here between May and October, we really recommend the Conques Nocturnes: the tympanum is lit up to bring back its original colours, and you can visit the galleries and their capitals, normally closed to the public. In our view, it is the most beautiful way to discover the abbey church.

How we visit Conques from the cottage

From Gîte de la Viguerie in Pruines, Conques is about fifteen minutes away along the road that follows the Dourdou valley, a drive we never tire of, even after all these years. Our tip to avoid the coach crowds: go early, before 10 am, or late in the afternoon once the groups have left. The village is much quieter then, and the low light on the stone-slab roofs is superb for photos. Visiting the abbey church on your own is free; the treasury, the cloister and guided tours are paid for and run by the Conques-Marcillac tourist office. We happily allow half a day to stroll through the cobbled lanes, visit the abbey church and enjoy the views over the village, especially from the Bancarel viewpoint, a stop we recommend every time, above all at the end of the day.