Love the Place You Live: Abbey Restaurant

By Gabrielle.

The Abbey Restaurant (or Bistrot de l’Abbaye) is a place that’s been on our need-to-try-list since we moved here almost 2 years ago. I’m so glad we finally went. And I’m trying not to kick myself for not going sooner. I practically licked my plate clean!

We were told this restaurant was known for its good food and bad service. (There are expats who will say the same thing about the entire country of France. : ) But we found both the service and food to be wonderful.

This was a date, so it was Ben Blair and me sans kids. And we met 4 other friends at the restaurant. One of them, Mark, is the only other American we’ve met in town. He loves learning about the history of the area and told us the restaurant building was indeed a former abbey, and that the building dated to medieval times — approx 1100 a.d. (Wow!). He mentioned you could tell by the particular type of stone faces on the building.

He said that at the time, the little town would have been walled, and that the abbey would have been right outside the walls — with a moat between the two — so that travelers would have a place to eat and sleep if they approached when the wall was closed.

Above the restaurant, you can now find apartments. Can you imagine living in an apartment that’s almost a 1000 years old?

It was dark when we had dinner, so I went back in the daylight to snap a few photos. I also took some pictures around the restaurant’s neighborhood so you can get a better feel for the area.




Friends, I hope Love The Place You Live is helping you get out there and explore your communities. I LOVE reading the reports about your adventures. It’s so fun to see the column grow! December gets pretty crazy, so the next Love the Place You Live post will be in January. I encourage you to do something local between now and then, because I’d love to read your writeup! I’ll try to remind everyone a few days before.

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Love The Place You Live: November 2012 Linkup

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13 thoughts on “Love the Place You Live: Abbey Restaurant”

  1. Pingback: Autumn in Portland – Cathedral Park | Here We Go, Harris

  2. Pingback: UCI Arboretum for Love the Place You Live | baby takes berlin

  3. Wow, apartments that are 1000 years old, how humbling! I love this blog feature. I have to admit that I think about it quite often, especially now that the weather is getting cold, and I do force myself to go out and enjoy what our city has to offer!

  4. Hi there! A friend just emailed me, suggesting I link up here- I am so glad she introduced me to your blog, and I love this segment. I blog about living in England as an expat, and shared a cool historic property that is just five minutes away from us!

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