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Tamié a 800 year old monastery in the French Alps

The monastery church gives service seven times a day.

Tamié is a Catholic monastery in the French Alps. A group of Trappist monks live in this beautiful 800 years old monastery with a most beautiful location in the French Alps: On the hillside with view to the famous mountain Mont Blanc on a bright day, Tamié is far away from stress of all kinds. It's a perfect place for peace and reflections.

Follow a steep and narrow local road from the French village Albertville constant up and up in every bend of the road - and at last you are there: The friendly and smiling monks welcome guests to a house for over-night-guests beside the monastery.

Talking to their guests
You feel welcome the minute you see the please and meet the monks. Several of the monks are used to spend much time talking to their guests. Local people visit the monks when they need someone to talk to or have a hard time in life. Some only need the nice recreation in the beautiful nature around the monastery. Some need to talk about their relation to God and receive personal advices from one of the monks. Others need the contemplative quietness that the monastery gives for a good retreat. In France its common to visit the monastery - in fact many people do so.

The catholics are in many ways very nit to the monastery and for very good reasons: The monks care of you and do their best to help you no matter what you believe in or where you come from. In short they are very tolerant and wise men and they are there for you. Most of them only speak French.

I was lucky to have some fine talks with Brother Paul: Because of his background from Switzerland he spoke well German and a little English. He said: God is just as close to mankind as the wheel is close to the road. Still a lot of people can't find God.

Many regard monks as serious men in unpractical clothes behind closed doors with heir books and prayers day and night ages away from the modern society. That's far from the truth. The monks have a very good sense of humour. They are easy to talk to and very updated to your modern life. And it looks like they live a happy life.

Material poverty
They are hard working people and they live in material poverty but spiritual riches. This helps them to concentrate on the spiritual side of life and help them develop their contact with God.

- It's easier to have a dialog with God in the monastery, one of them told me referring to all spiritual disturbing elements in modern civilization.

Some of them are doing practical works like gardening, work in the forest or all kinds of work needed to run and take care of the beautiful old buildings. Others have studied theology and other subjects at different universities in France.

Some of them were doing the work in the kitchen preparing the very tasty meals for their guests. Most of the food is from the fields belonging to the monastery including the wine, the milk and the vegetables. Tree times a day they serve you meals in a very nice room decorated with local flowers and nice classic music or church music.

Quire song
I love their beautiful quire song in the olds monastery church and the most tasteful and famous Tamié-cheese from their cheese factory where the cheese production amounts to approximatively 400 kg of Tamié cheese per day.

Contemplative life
The monastery church gives service seven times a day. The monks get up tree in the morning and half an hour later the first service starts with the most beautiful quire supported with harp and organ. At 8 p.m. the monks go to bed for the night.

You don't have to follow their timetable for the day, but it's tempting to do so because of the beautiful music in the church.

The monks live very different form the way of life to most of us: They are dedicated to a contemplative life in a close dialog with their God. To many of us it's strange to give up all material belongings and live the whole life in a spiritual community with very little private life. But to them it's worth it.