Sainte-Marie-des-Dames, Romanesque abbey in Saintes, France.

Sainte-Marie-des-Dames is a former Benedictine nunnery on the right bank of the Charente in Saintes, built in pale beige stone under terracotta-tiled roofs. Its 12th-century abbey church has a bell tower topped by a conical stone roof, a drum pierced with small arched openings and an octagonal lantern with larger arches, beside a smaller rounded turret. A long low wing with square windows and a lower building with round-arched openings and a cross-shaped iron wall anchor complete the complex.

Geoffrey Martel, Count of Anjou, and his wife Agnes of Burgundy founded the Benedictine nunnery in 1047, with Constance as first abbess. Eleanor of Aquitaine funded construction of the 12th-century abbey church. Agnès de Rochechouart placed the abbey under French royal protection around 1320, prompting English mercenaries to sack it in 1326. The Revolution turned it into a prison, the First Empire into a barracks.

The abbey is now the heart of a "cité musicale": it houses the Jeune Orchestre de l'abbaye aux Dames and an arts education programme, and each year it hosts the Festival de Saintes. The conventual buildings of the 17th century, rebuilt under abbess Françoise de Foix, serve as concert and training spaces for musicians from many countries.

The site is open to visitors, and guided tours take you through the church, cloister, and exhibitions about life in the monastery. It helps to check ahead about opening times, as they vary by season.

The abbey church's bell tower is called "en pomme de pin" (pine-cone) for its conical stone roof, which sits above an octagonal lantern pierced by arched openings. The conventual buildings around it were rebuilt in the 17th century under abbess Françoise de Foix after wars and fires. Since the 1970s and 1980s restoration, they house the Cité musicale, home of the Festival de Saintes and the Jeune Orchestre de l'abbaye aux Dames.