Mark Seymour - Tour Guide

Mark Seymour - Tour Guide I own and operate a small group tour company, focused on providing tour experiences through Britain and Europe

There’s a long line of us this morning, scurrying along the cliff path in our clogs and carrying our pasties and c***r w...
06/09/2026

There’s a long line of us this morning, scurrying along the cliff path in our clogs and carrying our pasties and c***r with us. The sea wind is brisk, tugging at the edges of our worn clothes as we march single-file along the rugged Cornish coast. Each one of us is headed to the same place: the mouth of the Wheal Trevelyan, the mine we call our livelihood. The work shift is going to be a week-long stint, and out there under the sea is where we shall toil.
The sky is clear, the sun casting a soft golden light across the landscape, but it does little to soothe the unease that sits heavily in my chest. It’s only been a week since the wheal broke down, and water started to seep back into the mine. The memory of it clings to me like the salt in the air. Work was halted as we were all evacuated, scrambling up the ladders like rats fleeing a sinking ship. But now, Mr. Trevelyan, the mine owner, wants us to get caught up, to make up for the lost time. Hence the long shift that we’ve been told to do.
I glance at the man walking beside me, Harold Helligan. His face is set in a grim line, but there’s a quiet strength in his eyes. He’s the one who saved us last week, or so he says. He tells of the tommyknocker who crawled out of the dark and whispered warnings in his ear, telling him of the impending flood. T’were Harold who raised the alarm, and for that, I am thankful….. thankful to him and to the knocker, if such a creature really exists.
There are stories passed down through generations about the tommyknockers—small, mischievous spirits who dwell in the mines, knocking on the walls to foretell danger. Some say they’re the spirits of miners who died in the deep tunnels, forever bound to the earth that took their lives. Others believe they’re older than that, ancient beings that lived in the land long before men ever dug into it. Either way, no one truly doubts their presence. In the belly of the earth, you learn quickly to respect things unseen.
Up ahead, I see the mine, a dark gash in the cliffside. The other men are already gathering there, their silhouettes outlined against the bright sea beyond. They’re preparing for the descent, adjusting their gear, and lighting their new Davy lamps. These lamps are supposed to be safer than the old ones, meant to prevent explosions caused by gas pockets in the mine. I hope that’s true. The sight of those calm, unconcerned faces lifts my spirits a little. Perhaps today won’t be so bad after all.
I stop for a moment and look out over the sea.
The waves are rolling in steadily, crashing against the rocks far below. There’s a certain comfort in the sight of it…. the vastness and constancy of the ocean. It fills me with warmth and a strange sense of confidence. The sea doesn’t change. It just is. And today feels like a good day, despite everything. I shall earn my crust again, and perhaps I’ll even have a story to tell by the end of it.

(I thank those of you who have subscribed to my buymeacoffee.com/markseymour
page. Coffee fuels these stories. I hope you’ll consider joining me.)

As we approach the mine’s entrance, the familiar smell of damp earth and coal dust hits my nose. The chatter among the men fades as we gather our tools and prepare to descend. The cage that will lower us into the mine is rusted but sturdy, groaning under the weight of the first group of men as it begins its slow descent into the black mouth of the earth. I watch them disappear, the glow of their lamps fading into pinpricks of light before being swallowed entirely by the darkness.
"Right, you’re next," a foreman barks, nodding toward me and a few others.
I step forward, my heart thudding a little faster than usual. Harold stands beside me, his jaw set, though I can see his hands fidgeting slightly as he adjusts the straps of his lantern. Even he’s not immune to the dread that creeps into a man’s gut before he goes underground. I grip the edge of the cage as we step inside, and with a lurch, we’re on our way down.
The light from the surface dims quickly, replaced by the faint glow of our lamps as the walls of the shaft close in around us. The deeper we go, the colder it gets. The silence is thick, broken only by the groan of the cage and the occasional drip of water from the stones above.
Finally, we reach the bottom. The cage jerks to a stop, and we step out into the dimly lit tunnels. The air is heavy with moisture, the walls slick with condensation. Water drips steadily from somewhere in the distance, echoing through the tunnels like a slow, steady heartbeat.
Harold leads the way, and we follow in silence, our footsteps muffled by the damp earth beneath our boots. The tunnel twists and turns, growing narrower the deeper we go. Soon, the only light is the soft glow from our Davy lamps, casting long, flickering shadows on the rough stone walls.
As we reach the face of the mine where we’ll be working, I can’t shake the feeling that something is watching us. It’s the same feeling I’ve had every time I’ve come down here…. a sense that we’re not alone, that the earth itself is alive and aware of our presence.
We set to work, the familiar rhythm of pickaxes striking stone echoing through the tunnel. The hours pass in a blur of sweat and labor, but that nagging feeling never leaves me. I glance at Harold from time to time, wondering if he feels it too, but he says nothing, his focus on the task at hand.
Then, just as I’m about to dismiss the feeling as nothing more than nerves, I hear it—a faint knock, barely audible over the sound of our work. I freeze, my pickaxe halfway to the wall. The others stop too, their heads turning toward the sound.
"Did you hear that?" I whisper, my voice barely louder than the knock itself.
Harold’s eyes meet mine, and I see the same unease in his expression. "Aye," he mutters, wiping the sweat from his brow. "The knockers, they’re warning us again."
Before anyone can react, the ground beneath our feet shudders violently. A low rumble echoes through the tunnel, and then, with a deafening roar, part of the ceiling collapses in front of us, sending a cloud of dust and debris into the air.
We scramble back, coughing and shielding our faces from the dust. My heart is racing, my mind a whirlwind of panic. But through the chaos, I hear it again—the knocking, louder this time, urgent.
"Out! We need to get out!" Harold shouts, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the tunnel entrance.
We run, our lamps swinging wildly as we race through the narrow passage, the sound of collapsing rock following us like a shadow. The knocking continues, guiding us through the twisting tunnels, until finally, we see the faint light of the surface ahead.
We burst out of the mine, gasping for breath and covered in dust, but alive. Behind us, the mine groans and settles, the entrance partially blocked by the debris.
I turn to Harold, my chest heaving. "The knockers saved us again," I say, my voice hoarse.
He nods, wiping the dirt from his face. "Aye, that they did.

https://www.seymourtravels.co.uk/general-1

( I hope you’ve enjoyed this story. As a former Rick Steves guide I used to write them as blogs to encourage travel and a sense of curiosity. I am leading another more tours in Devon and Cornwall in 2027. Join me ! Please ‘like and share’. Thank you. )

Walking with a small group into the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey is something I have done so many times over the years t...
04/09/2026

Walking with a small group into the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey is something I have done so many times over the years that, by now, the opening sequence has become almost ritualistic. There are certain things I do automatically, like a pilot going through a pre-flight checklist, although with considerably less responsibility for the lives of the passengers and considerably more concern about whether anyone has remembered where they left their reading glasses. We arrive, I exchange the customary pleasantries with the receptionist, smile as though I have not had exactly the same conversation with exactly the same enthusiasm on dozens of previous occasions, and then, before we venture through the little archway into the abbey precinct, I perform what has become one of the most important pieces of guiding advice I have ever developed. I tell everyone to use the lavatories. It is not glamorous, it is not particularly historical and it certainly will not appear in any guidebook, but after years of experience I have learned that nothing destroys the contemplative atmosphere of a medieval ruin quite so efficiently as a member of the group whispering urgently that they really should have gone before we entered….. Having dealt with this essential modern inconvenience, I usually gather everyone around the famous Glastonbury Thorn, explain its extraordinary association with Joseph of Arimathea and the traditions surrounding the tree, and then, with a mixture of deliberate mischief and long-established habit, walk straight past the enormous cross ( ignoring it completely) standing nearby as though it were an item of garden furniture that had somehow been left behind by the previous occupants.

Everything appeared perfectly normal that particular morning, and yet almost immediately I had the strange feeling that something was not quite right.… It was difficult to identify at first because nothing obvious appeared to be wrong. The abbey was still there, the ancient ruins were still there, the grass was still green, and the Somerset sky was doing its usual impression of having forgotten whether it was supposed to rain or shine. Yet there, inside the small entrance arch and positioned almost directly opposite the Thorn, was a large white marquee. It looked conspicuously out of place, like someone had decided that a medieval ruin required a temporary conference centre. I wondered whether there might be a wedding taking place, although there was something strangely discreet about the arrangement. There were no guests wandering around in finery, no anxious-looking bridegroom practising his breathing exercises and, most importantly from my perspective, none of the familiar costumed interpreters standing in carefully chosen locations ready to ambush unsuspecting visitors with several hundred years of history. The absence of the usual docents was particularly noticeable. I had become accustomed to seeing them strategically positioned around the site like medieval snipers, patiently waiting for someone to approach so that they could spring into action with a fascinating fact about monastic life, medieval cooking or the unfortunate consequences of having one’s head chopped off.

Still, I carried on with my routine because a tour guide learns very early that if something looks slightly peculiar, the safest course of action is often to pretend that it does not exist. There are limits to curiosity when you are responsible for a group of people, particularly when those people have entrusted you with their holiday and are expecting you to know what is going on. We passed through the entrance and into the remains of what had once been one of the most magnificent monastic complexes in England….. it’s truly gorgeous today…. Glastonbury Abbey has an extraordinary ability to make the imagination work. The surviving ruins are impressive enough, but the spaces between the stones are even more powerful, because they invite you to reconstruct the vanished world in your mind. Where there are now stretches of grass and fragments of masonry, there were once walls, roofs, chapels, cloisters, workshops, kitchens and the constant movement of monks, servants, pilgrims and visitors. The great church would have dominated everything, rising above the surrounding buildings with the sort of architectural confidence that medieval abbots clearly possessed in abundance, particularly when somebody else was paying the bill.

I gathered my group together and, as always, instructed everyone to put their bags beside the wall. “To the wall, my children, to the wall,” I announced with my customary theatricality, because if one is going to shepherd a group through the ruins of a medieval monastery, one might as well occasionally behave like an eccentric abbot. Once everyone was assembled, I began my familiar explanation of the abbey and its place within medieval society. I have never been particularly inclined to romanticise the medieval Church, and Glastonbury provides plenty of opportunity to discuss the enormous power wielded by ecclesiastical institutions. The abbey was not simply a collection of pious men quietly contemplating eternity while eating soup in a cloister. It was a vast economic and political organisation, possessing land, wealth, influence and obligations, all embedded within the complex structure of feudal society… the feudal system in England was essentially a ‘totalitarian’ state. The Church provided education, charity and spiritual direction only to the rich and powerful, and it was also a formidable institution with enormous negative authority over ordinary lives. To a modern audience, some aspects of that world can look remarkably close to a system in which religious, political and economic power were woven together so tightly that separating them would have required a particularly sharp pair of scissors.

(I thank those of you who have subscribed to my buymeacoffee.com/markseymour
page. Coffee fuels these stories. I hope you’ll consider joining me.)

From there I moved, as I invariably do, into the story of how the abbey might once have looked. I described the great church, the monastic buildings and the bustling activity that would have surrounded them, encouraging everyone to imagine the place not as the beautiful, tranquil ruin before us but as a living community in which hundreds of people worked, prayed, cooked, farmed, traded and occasionally, I suspect, complained about the quality of the soup. I talked about the wealth required to construct and maintain such an institution and the enormous resources that flowed through medieval monasteries. Then, inevitably, we arrived at King Arthur, because at Glastonbury it is almost impossible to avoid him. The supposed discovery of Arthur’s grave here in the twelfth century has become one of the site’s most enduring legends….. although the historical evidence for the claim is extraordinarily weak. The whole affair has the unmistakable smell of medieval fraud, and I explained to my group that the association between Arthur and Glastonbury was almost certainly promoted for reasons that had rather more to do with prestige, pilgrimage and money than with archaeological certainty.

This led naturally into the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII. Henry’s religious quarrel with Rome, his desire for control over the English Church and his well-known matrimonial difficulties transformed the country. The dissolution stripped the monasteries of immense amounts of land and wealth, much of which passed into royal hands and subsequently into those of the aristocracy and other landowners… people who were his allies, stripping powers and wealth from the monastic church and therefore the intimidations of the Pope. I explained how some of the wealth and resources released by the dissolution contributed, directly or indirectly, to the strengthening of the English state, including its naval ambitions and coastal defences. In the centuries that followed, England’s growing maritime power became one of the defining forces in European and global history. Eventually British naval power would play a major role in suppressing the Atlantic slave trade in the nineteenth century, although, as I always point out, history is rarely kind enough to provide a simple moral ledger. The same maritime power that enabled Britain to project enormous influence across the world had also been involved in imperial expansion and commerce that benefited from slavery. History, like Glastonbury itself, is considerably more complicated than the tourist brochure.

I discuss a lot at Glastonbury, although my groups rarely seem to complain until I reach the point where they realise that their guide has somehow managed to connect Arthurian legend, medieval feudalism, Henry VIII, the Royal Navy and the abolition of slavery without once mentioning where the nearest café is….. oooh actually I do that too….. Eventually, however, even I recognise that information needs to be allowed to settle, and so I released my wards to explore. They could wander through the remaining buildings, visit the kitchen, explore the grounds and make their way into the town, with one firm instruction: be back with me for our picnic at twelve. I watched them disappear in different directions, armed with cameras, phones and the enthusiasm of people who had been promised both history and food, before I turned my attention to the second half of my responsibilities.

I hurried back towards the minibus and began gathering the picnic supplies. There were pasties, fruit, drinks and all the assorted paraphernalia required to transform a simple meal into what I like to think of as a proper travelling picnic. A picnic is not merely lunch…. it is an event. It requires organisation, containers, napkins, bags, drinks, something sweet, something savoury and at least one item that nobody remembers bringing but which mysteriously becomes essential. I carried everything back and arranged it beneath the covered shelter overlooking the abbey, laying everything out with the concentration of a field marshal preparing a campaign. The first members of the group began drifting back, then another, and another, until I realised that something rather unusual was happening. They were all returning early.

By ten minutes to twelve, every single member of the group had arrived, which was extraordinary in itself. Normally the approach of lunchtime produces a peculiar phenomenon among tourists whereby their internal clocks become increasingly accurate while their ability to judge distance deteriorates dramatically. Yet here they all were, standing around the picnic tables with strange expressions on their faces. One of them pointed towards the main entrance. Four men had just entered, and there was something unmistakably purposeful about them. They were speaking quietly into their lapels, which is never a reassuring sight unless you happen to be filming an episode of a low-budget spy drama. Almost immediately I noticed two of the normally cheerful docents moving towards one of the smaller gardeners’ entrances and locking it.
At that moment, the strange feeling I had experienced earlier suddenly made sense. We began eating, but nobody was entirely concentrating on the food. Our eyes kept drifting towards the entrance. The abbey was eerily quiet that morning, and, remarkably, we seemed to be almost the only visitors inside the complex. Under ordinary circumstances I might have considered this a wonderful stroke of luck. Now it felt rather more like we had accidentally wandered onto a film set without being told what part we were supposed to play.

Then, through the little arch beside the Thorn and the mysterious white marquee, a cluster of people appeared and hurried into the grounds. They looked, at first glance, like paparazzi, although they possessed the slightly more disciplined air of people who knew exactly where they were supposed to stand. And then behind them came a tall, familiar figure. I recognised him almost immediately.

It was Prince Charles….
At that time he was still the Prince of Wales, although history would eventually promote him to the position of King Charles III. For a moment nobody in my group appeared capable of eating. Forks paused halfway to mouths, conversations evaporated and several pairs of eyes widened considerably. I remember thinking that this was a rather extraordinary development in the middle of what had begun as a perfectly ordinary day at Glastonbury Abbey. We had come expecting monks, ruins, Arthurian legends and a picnic. We had not, apparently, been briefed about royalty.
One of the men who had been speaking into his lapel eventually approached me and introduced himself. He explained that the Prince was visiting his Duchy of Cornwall interests and was there to draw attention, through the media, to concerns about drainage and the management of the Somerset Levels. The surrounding entrances were being secured while the visit took place. We were perfectly welcome to remain where we were, finish our lunch and continue enjoying the abbey, or, if we preferred, we could leave. The press activity might take some time.
I looked at my group…..Then I looked at the picnic…..Then I looked back at my group.
There are moments in life when profound decisions have to be made, and this was not one of them. We were staying.

There was something wonderfully surreal about sitting beneath the shelter at Glastonbury Abbey eating pasties while a royal press operation unfolded nearby. Every few moments someone would glance towards the entrance, then immediately attempt to look as though they had not been looking. The atmosphere was strangely convivial, almost conspiratorial. We were tourists who had somehow become unwilling extras in a piece of royal theatre, and nobody seemed particularly keen to leave. The picnic suddenly tasted better, perhaps because food always improves when accompanied by the possibility that something unexpected might happen.
Eventually, as we were finishing, I noticed the tall figure walking towards us across the grass. He was coming with purpose, taking long, confident strides towards the shelter. Conversation stopped almost instantly. There was a brief moment in which I considered whether I should stand to attention, bow, salute, or simply continue eating my pasty and hope for the best. Fortunately, common sense prevailed, although I cannot claim that my heart rate remained entirely unaffected.
He approached us and, with an ease that immediately dissolved much of the tension, introduced himself and asked where we were all from. He wished everyone well and thanked us for our patience while he and his entourage had been using the abbey. It was a remarkably gracious little encounter, lasting only a few moments, but it left my group absolutely delighted. The man who had been discussing drainage and marshland with the press had now wandered over to thank a small group of American visitors and their slightly bemused British guide for patiently eating lunch while the royal circus took place around them.

And then, just as quickly as he had appeared, he walked away.
We sat there for a moment in stunned silence, absorbing what had just happened. Eventually the conversation resumed, although the tone had changed completely. The abbey was no longer simply the place where we had come to explore medieval ruins. It had become the setting for a story that none of us had anticipated when we walked through the entrance that morning.
I gathered everyone together and prepared to move on…. Our day, I decided, was complete. Whatever happened afterwards was going to struggle to compete. We had seen the abbey, discussed Arthur, criticised medieval power structures, examined the consequences of Henry VIII’s religious anxieties, eaten a respectable Somerset picnic and unexpectedly found ourselves sharing the grounds with the future king of England.
There was, of course, still Wells Cathedral waiting for us…..But Wells had a problem…..It was going to have to follow that.

https://www.seymourtravels.co.uk/2027tours-1
( I hope you’ve enjoyed this story. As a former Rick Steves guide I used to write them as blogs to encourage travel and a sense of curiosity. I am leading another more tours in 2027. Join me ! Please ‘like and share’. Thank you. )

There are certain places that seem to welcome you before you have even properly arrived, and Fontevraud L’Abbaye is one ...
03/09/2026

There are certain places that seem to welcome you before you have even properly arrived, and Fontevraud L’Abbaye is one of them. I have always had a particularly good feeling when I walk through its entrance, perhaps because there is something wonderfully unassuming about the place despite the enormous historical weight it carries. To us English speakers it is usually Fontevraud Abbey, which is easier on the tongue and considerably less likely to make one sound as though one has accidentally swallowed a French dictionary, but whatever name you choose, the place has a quiet magnetism that begins almost as soon as you arrive in the village. My groups and I always stay for a few days in the village itself, in a lovely hotel directly across the square from the abbey, which means that our relationship with Fontevraud begins long before we actually buy our tickets and walk through the gates. We have enjoyed some excellent meals there, lingered over aperitifs while the evening light settled across the village, and developed the slightly dangerous habit of believing that because the abbey is only a few steps from our hotel, we can always have one more drink before bed because there is no possibility of getting lost. This is, of course, precisely the sort of reasoning that has led to some of the world’s less successful military campaigns.

The village has a gentle, almost sleepy quality that seems entirely appropriate for a place dominated by one of Europe’s great medieval abbeys. It is in the Loire Valley, surrounded by the soft green landscape and pale limestone architecture that gives this part of France such a distinctive character, and there is something immensely satisfying about standing in the village square in the morning with coffee….strong coffee in hand and looking towards the enormous abbey complex beyond the rooftops. Fontevraud was founded in 1101 by Robert d’Arbrissel, a remarkable and somewhat unconventional religious reformer who established a mixed monastic community in which women held authority over men, with the abbey ultimately becoming one of the most important religious foundations in medieval France. It was an extraordinary institution, attracting aristocratic women, widows, noble daughters and members of powerful families, while also accumulating land, wealth and influence. Its royal associations became particularly significant because the Plantagenet dynasty, which ruled vast territories in what are now, England and France, during the Middle Ages, chose Fontevraud as one of its great dynastic burial places. That connection is one of the reasons I particularly enjoy bringing English visitors here, because suddenly the history of medieval France becomes intertwined with the history of England in a way that is almost impossible to ignore.

Walking through the admissions area, the first to do so that day, with a small group is a surprisingly satisfying ritual. We present our tickets, wait patiently for the electric turnstile to decide whether we are worthy of entering, and then pass through into the enormous complex beyond. I always find something faintly amusing about this transition. Medieval pilgrims, abbesses, kings, queens and monks would have entered through gates guarded by people rather than an illuminated electronic mechanism that makes a little mechanical noise when you approach it, and yet here we are, hundreds of years later, still required to prove that we have paid before being allowed into paradise….. some things don’t change. The modern world has apparently decided that even the afterlife requires a barcode.
Almost immediately we find ourselves standing in front of the great abbey church, and the first impression is one of scale. The buildings are constructed from the beautiful pale stone characteristic of the region, and the light seems to cling to the surfaces rather than simply fall upon them. On a bright day the whole complex appears almost honey-coloured, while under a cloudier Loire Valley sky the stone takes on a cooler, silvery quality….. it’s gorgeous. The architecture is wonderfully restrained compared with some of the flamboyant Gothic churches further north, yet its very simplicity gives it an authority that becomes more apparent the longer one looks. The church dates principally from the early twelfth century and retains important Romanesque characteristics, including its substantial proportions and rounded architectural forms, although centuries of alteration and restoration have inevitably left their fingerprints across the complex.

Behind me, I can sense the group beginning to spread out in that familiar manner that occurs whenever people encounter a building that is considerably larger and more complicated than the photograph they had seen in the brochure. Some immediately reach for cell phone cameras, others look upwards, and one or two adopt the universal expression of a traveller silently recalculating how much history they can absorb before lunch. I have learned that guiding a group through somewhere like Fontevraud is partly an exercise in history and partly an exercise in crowd management, emotional interpretation and knowing precisely when someone is about to wander away because they have spotted a particularly attractive doorway.

(I thank those of you who have subscribed to my buymeacoffee.com/markseymour
page. Coffee fuels these stories. I hope you’ll consider joining me.)

Among my group that day are two people whose reactions to the abbey could hardly be more different. Margaret, an energetic American woman who has approached every historic site since the beginning of the tour with the enthusiasm of someone who has just been told there is a prize hidden somewhere inside it, is visibly delighted. She has already begun examining the stonework with enormous concentration, moving her head from side to side as though trying to photograph the entire building with her eyes. There is something wonderfully childlike about her curiosity, although I suspect she would object strongly to the comparison. Her husband, Tom, is slightly behind her, looking around with the expression of a man who appreciates history perfectly well but has not yet discovered why it requires quite so many buildings.
As we move towards the heart of the abbey, Margaret’s excitement becomes increasingly obvious. She is not merely interested in the architecture; she is beginning to imagine the people who occupied these spaces…… That is one of the great pleasures of Fontevraud, because the abbey has an unusually powerful ability to make the medieval world feel populated rather than merely preserved. We pass through spaces where women lived, prayed, worked and governed, and it becomes easier to understand that this was not simply a collection of beautiful old buildings but a functioning institution with its own hierarchy, routines, ambitions and frustrations. I find myself imagining the abbesses dealing with everything from religious discipline to land management, finances and the endless human complications that accompany any large community. The Middle Ages may have lacked electricity, central heating and decent plumbing, but human beings had already perfected the ability to create complicated administrative problems.

The abbey’s connection with the Plantagenets is what particularly captures Tom’s attention. Once we reach the church and approach the extraordinary tombs of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II, Richard the Lionheart and Isabella of Angoulême, something changes in his expression. Until this point he has been interested in the building; now he is confronted with people whose names he knows from English history. Eleanor of Aquitaine in particular has a presence that seems to extend beyond her effigy. She was one of the most powerful women of medieval Europe, duchess of Aquitaine, queen of France and later queen of England, mother of kings and a central figure in the extraordinary political world of the twelfth century. Her son Richard I became the legendary Lionheart, while her husband Henry II built an empire that stretched across much of western Europe and spent much of his reign wrestling with the problems created by his own family.
……Tom stands quietly looking at the effigies for longer than I expect. There is something deeply human about seeing historical figures reduced from names in books to carved forms lying side by side in stone. Richard’s effigy depicts him with the dignity expected of a medieval king, but the reality behind the image was considerably more complicated. He spent relatively little time in England, fought extensively on the Continent and in the Crusades, and became one of the most famous kings in English history despite leaving behind a kingdom that he had scarcely governed in person. Standing there in Fontevraud, however, none of that feels quite as distant as it normally does. The stone is pale, the church is vast and quiet, and for a moment Tom seems genuinely moved by the thought that these people, whose lives are usually encountered through textbooks and television programmes, were once physically present in this world just as we are….they were ‘real’ people too !

Margaret, meanwhile, has become fascinated by Eleanor. She circles the tomb carefully, examining the details and leaning forward with the concentration of someone trying to discover a secret. I can almost see the story forming in her imagination, and it is one of the things I love most about taking people around historical places. The guide provides dates, names, dynasties and political circumstances, but the visitor provides the emotional response. Margaret does not need me to tell her that Eleanor was remarkable; she has already decided this for herself. There is a moment when she looks from Eleanor’s tomb towards the vast church around her and seems to grasp the extraordinary journey that brought a woman born in the twelfth century to this particular place, where an American traveller from many centuries later is now standing over her.

The abbey itself continues to unfold around us, and every courtyard, gallery and stone passage seems to offer another glimpse into its long history. Fontevraud survived for centuries as a religious institution before the French Revolution brought an abrupt end to monastic life. The abbey was subsequently transformed into a prison… a brutal prison….under Napoleon, and this chapter of its history is almost as extraordinary as the medieval one. It is difficult to reconcile the serene beauty of the buildings with the reality that they were once occupied by prisoners. The enormous complex became a penal institution capable of holding thousands of inmates, and the old religious spaces were adapted to serve an entirely different purpose. Where once there had been contemplation and religious discipline, there were now workshops, guards, prisoners and the grinding routines of incarceration.
I explain this as we walk, and the group becomes noticeably quieter….Context is much more important than dates and even names. It helps people to ‘connect’ with history and their past….. History has a habit of doing this. A building can seem romantic when viewed through the soft lens of medieval architecture, but then someone mentions that it was later a prison and suddenly the walls acquire another layer of meaning. Tom looks back towards the church, his expression thoughtful, while Margaret seems genuinely surprised that the same beautiful complex could have experienced such a dramatic transformation. I suspect she is beginning to realise that historic buildings are rather like people in that respect: the older they become, the more complicated their biographies tend to be.

Eventually we emerge into one of the open courtyards, where the pale stone walls rise around us and the sky suddenly seems enormous. The group naturally slows. After the serene beauty of the interiors, the open space feels liberating, and people begin looking at the buildings and the architecture from different angles, taking photographs and quietly absorbing what they have seen. I watch Tom standing slightly apart from the others, gazing back towards the church. He has the look of someone who has unexpectedly encountered something that has reached him on a level beyond simple sightseeing. Margaret joins him, and for once she is not rushing ahead. They stand together in the courtyard, looking at the abbey, and I leave them to it.
That is one of the privileges of being a small-group guide. With a large coach party, there is always the pressure to keep twenty five people moving in the same direction like a particularly well-dressed herd. With a small group of five to ten people, you can notice when someone needs another five minutes. You can see when history has genuinely affected someone, and you can allow them to stand quietly in a place without immediately announcing that the next scheduled object is waiting twenty metres away. Travelling is not simply about collecting sights; sometimes it is about allowing a place to settle inside you. I always give them that time and I may even just ‘release’ them so that they can explore on their own.
Eventually, of course, lunch begins to exert its own historical importance, and I notice several members of the group glancing towards the village beyond the abbey walls. This is generally the point at which even the most dedicated medievalist begins to remember that the human body has requirements that cannot be postponed indefinitely for the sake of architectural appreciation. We make our way back towards the village, passing once again through the stone entrance and emerging into the gentle atmosphere of Fontevraud itself.

The contrast is delightful. Inside the abbey we have been wandering through centuries of religion, royalty, revolution, imprisonment and restoration; outside, the village is carrying on with the comparatively modest business of cafés, restaurants, bicycles and people wondering what they might have for lunch. The church bells seem entirely unconcerned with whether Henry II was a successful father, whether Richard deserved his reputation or whether Napoleon had good ideas about prisons. Somewhere nearby a car is being parked with considerable difficulty, reminding us that the great sweep of European history has not eliminated the universal problem of finding somewhere to leave a vehicle.
By the time we reach our hotel across the square, everyone seems slightly different from when we left. The group has acquired that pleasantly dazed expression that follows a good historical visit, when the mind is still sorting through kings and queens, stone arches, tombs, courtyards and unexpected stories. Margaret is still visibly excited, her imagination apparently travelling backwards through the centuries at considerably greater speed than the rest of us. Tom is quieter, but there is a contentment in his expression that tells me Fontevraud has affected him deeply.
Perhaps that is why I always have such a good feeling when I enter Fontevraud L’Abbaye Royale. It is not simply because the architecture is beautiful, although it certainly is, nor because the history is extraordinary, although it most certainly is that as well. It is because the place has an ability to make history feel alive without having to shout about it. The pale stone has endured kings, queens, abbesses, revolutionaries, prisoners, restorers and countless generations of visitors, and now it patiently receives another small group of travellers who have arrived from thousands of miles away to stand where medieval royalty once stood.

I look across the square towards the abbey and feel that familiar little surge of satisfaction. Another group has experienced Fontevraud, another collection of memories has been created, and another set of photographs will soon appear on phones and laptops around the world. Tomorrow we will move on to another special place because that is the nature of travelling, but for today the abbey has done its work. It has surprised us, educated us, amused us and, in Tom’s case at least, quietly moved us. And as for Margaret, I suspect she will still be thinking about Eleanor of Aquitaine over dinner, probably while explaining to the rest of us why Eleanor would have made an excellent small-group tour guide herself. Given her political career, her family arrangements and her ability to survive medieval Europe, I have little doubt she would have been considerably more intimidating than I am.
We stay in Fontevraud for several days, enabling us to explore the Loire valley in depth. This will give Margaret and Tom every opportunity to return into the abbey grounds !

https://www.seymourtravels.co.uk/2027tours-1
( I hope you’ve enjoyed this story. As a former Rick Steves guide I used to write them as blogs to encourage travel and a sense of curiosity. I am leading another more tours in the Loire Valley, Brittany and Normandy in 2027. Join me ! Please ‘like and share’. Thank you. )

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