Abbaye Church of Saint-Savin-Sur-Gartempe

Next morning we drove on across Limosin, seeing only Sedans, alas, but arriving at 11AM at the little town of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, our destination the abbey church there, another World Heritage site, 11th-12th century Romanesque with barrel vaulting and noted for the frescoes on the vault and elsewhere. We toured it until Miller Time (noon for the French), then walked around the apparently disused abbey, along the Gartempe, crossed the Medieval bridge, took more pix, and headed on to our next sight, in Chauvignon, now firmly in Poitou.

From the modern bridge over the Gartempe, the abbey and its church; it is
broadly rolling hill country here and you can see the 14th century spire
many miles away

Nave view; the colors--all painted--are striking, but the thing
of interest, apart from the frescoes, is the barrel vaulting; to
me, it looked like they did the equivalent of six bays in one
campaign, then started adding the rather conspicuous arches
between the barrel vaults toward the stern; in any case, this is
I guess one of the earlier attempts in Medieval architecture to
build a stone roof, that is, a stone roof on a BIG building

Wider view

Looking up into the big crossing tower

In the apse

Scrape away some plaster and paint and you get to see how
the thing is really put together, which can be a bit unnerving
at times

Frescoes on the porch ceiling

Still processing this one...I really should have paid more attention in Sunday
school

OK, now to the main event, the frescoes on the ceiling,
mostly Old Testament items

Building the Tower of Babel

Noah & ark

Pharaoh's chariot and rising waters

I swear they did not cover this in Sunday school

Garden of Eden, etc.

River Gartempe and the Medieval bridge

Vicki on the bridge

And now for the something completely different department:
in the abbey church gift shoppe, a Mucha tapestry; really
Thai'd things together