L'Abbaye de Fontevraud, Val de Loire, France

It started as the utopian dream of one man who was well ahead of his times; Robert d’Arbrissel was a famous preacher and set out to found the ideal city – a religious establishment uniting five very different monasteries: one for the nuns, one for the monks, one for the lepers, one for the sick and finally one for the fallen women...The year is 1099! At the head of this large community Robert d’Abrissel placed a woman.  As we can imagine such a dream was not to last long; it quickly became victim of its own success, attracting Royal patronage and becoming a fashionable retreat for repudiated queens and princesses. After the French Revolution from a Royal sanctuary it was converted into a dismal prison and remained such until 1963 (the last prisoners left as late as 1985!). Now it has been restored to its former glory.

The  Plantagenet  tombs - polychrome recumbent figures of Henri II, King of England and Queen Eleanor, his wife; Richard Lionheart, their son and Isabelle of Angoulême, one of their daughters-in-law (wife of John Lackland).