The deep valley in which the beautiful ancient village of Baume-les-Messieurs sits may not be hidden exactly, but it still feels like a place apart from the modern world. Steep wooded slopes that rise up from the green valley floor are topped by dramatic limestone cliffs towering over the buildings below. The valley retains a strong sense of the isolation that first lured the Benedictine monks who founded the Abbaye Saint-Pierre here in the 9th century.
The last leg of the route to Baume-les-Messieurs was down a steep winding country road through thick woodland. There was little indication of what awaited us until the valley and village finally came into sight. To get a better view we hiked up the hillside, and from up here you can fully understand why Baume was granted the prestigious ‘most beautiful villages of France’ award. Baume is as picturesque as it gets.
The village is, though, tiny. Unless you’re planning on doing some hiking in the surrounding countryside, a visit is unlikely to take more than a few hours. The obvious place to start is at the Abbaye Saint-Pierre, which is almost as large as the village itself. A religious community was probably present here as early as the 7th century, the abbey came into being a couple of centuries later and has been expanded over subsequent centuries.
The abbey’s buildings are structured around three tranquil courtyards but it’s dominated by a small Romanesque church. Ordinary looking from the outside, the interior is illuminated by a truly magnificent 16th century Flemish altarpiece. Baume-les-Messieurs’ Flemish connection is no surprise, the abbey came under the protection of the Dukes of Burgundy who, at that time, also controlled Flanders.
That connection is most famously made by Margaret of Austria, daughter of King Philip of France and Countess of both Burgundy and Flanders. She is buried at the Royal Monastery of Brou in Bourg-en-Bresse, south of Baume and where this trip started. No wonder then that the abbey also boasts a chapel with a series of tombs with, what it calls, ‘Burgundian statues’ dating from the 15th century.
If the abbey is the main reason for visiting, the village itself is an attractive spot to stroll around. Yet, even at the height of the summer holiday season, there seemed to be only a handful of other visitors. The part of the village next to the abbey has a couple of restaurants and shops catering to tourists. There are several places to stay, and I imagine it would make a very relaxing place to spend a few days in the middle of nature.
There are lots of outdoor activity possibilities in and around the valley, including hikes to caves and waterfalls, as well as to a series of viewing points on top of the surrounding limestone cliffs. We might have been tempted to spend a bit more time in the valley, but it was August and in the mid-30ºC even before lunchtime. With barely a breath of wind hiking was out of the question.
Conscious of the time and the fact that in this rural part of France it was unlikely that anywhere would be serving food after 2pm. Instead, we decided to head to another of the Jura region’s gems, the village of Château-Chalon, and lunch.
Notes from Camelid Country 