Sleeping in the leper house

 

You need a password before they will open the impressive solid wooden gates to allow you to drive into the grounds of L’Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud.  The old Leper house now operates as a very smart hotel and that is where we stayed the second time in Chinon. 

https://www.medart.pitt.edu/image/France/fontevrault-new/fontvrlt-tombs.html

In the nave of the white stone abbey there are what I first thought were coffins but later discovered were effigies depicting Henry II, and Eleanor of Aquitaine, (always Peter O’Toole and Katherine Hepburn in my mind!) I think the other two were Richard the Lionheart and his wife Berengavia.

The rooms are small since they were designed for monks and patients but are wonderfully “dressed” as they say these days. Medieval tapestries, hangings and furniture, but with comfortable beds and a tiny, but modern bathroom!

We ate in the cloister, where linen cloths covered round tables surrounding le petite jardin. I dined on sandre, or sondre, which still remains something of a mystery as the word, depending on whom you ask, translates variously as pike, eel or perch, which I know are three very distinctly different fish; but it was delicious in a light butter sauce. And I slept well. No ghosts at all, royal, leprous, fishy or normal.