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Bouillon · BE

Trappist nuns Notre-Dame de Clairefontaine

Tucked into a tight bend of the Semois about three kilometres from Bouillon, Notre-Dame de Clairefontaine is a working monastery of Cistercian (Trappist) nuns who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict — prayer, silence, manual work and a small but celebrated biscuiterie. The compound, designed in 1930–35 by Henri Vaes (the same architect behind Orval), rises against the wooded hillside in neo-Gothic concrete vaults said to evoke hands clasped in prayer, and the abbey church is open to visitors. What makes a stop here quietly memorable is the layered story: the community carries on the name of a Cistercian abbey founded near Arlon in 1247 by the Countess Ermesinde of Luxembourg, destroyed during the French Revolution, refounded in France in 1845 and re-established at Cordemois in 1933. After a turbulent 2016 closure order, the remaining nuns reached a settlement with the Vatican in July 2024 and continue on the same site as the Abbaye de Notre-Dame de Cordemois — so you will see both names used today.

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Monastery

Bouillon · BE

Trappist nuns Notre-Dame de Clairefontaine

Tucked into a tight bend of the Semois about three kilometres from Bouillon, Notre-Dame de Clairefontaine is a working monastery of Cistercian (Trappist) nuns who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict — prayer, silence, manual work and a small but celebrated biscuiterie. The compound, designed in 1930–35 by Henri Vaes (the same architect behind Orval), rises against the wooded hillside in neo-Gothic concrete vaults said to evoke hands clasped in prayer, and the abbey church is open to visitors. What makes a stop here quietly memorable is the layered story: the community carries on the name of a Cistercian abbey founded near Arlon in 1247 by the Countess Ermesinde of Luxembourg, destroyed during the French Revolution, refounded in France in 1845 and re-established at Cordemois in 1933. After a turbulent 2016 closure order, the remaining nuns reached a settlement with the Vatican in July 2024 and continue on the same site as the Abbaye de Notre-Dame de Cordemois — so you will see both names used today.