Conques, Medieval village in Aveyron, France
Conques is a village in the Aveyron department with narrow lanes between houses made of red sandstone and slate roofs. The streets rise in terraces along the slopes of a deep valley while the Dourdou river flows below.
Monks from the monastery of Agen brought the relics of a young martyr into the valley during the 9th century and founded an abbey here. The village became an important stop for pilgrims heading to Santiago de Compostela during medieval times and has kept its religious significance until today.
The village church features a large Romanesque portal above its entrance with more than one hundred stone figures. These colored sculptures depict scenes from the Bible and served for centuries as reading material for people who could not read.
The village center lies entirely within a pedestrian zone without car traffic and the lanes often have steps or steep sections. Sturdy footwear helps when walking on the uneven stones, and early morning hours offer quieter moments before larger visitor groups arrive.
A modern French painter designed new windows for the old abbey church in the 1990s with abstract patterns in clear and milky glass. These windows change the light inside depending on the time of day and weather, creating shifting moods in the Romanesque space.
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