Abbaye de Saint-Michel de Cuxa

Founded in 801, the Abbey of Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa is one of the oldest Carolingian monastic complexes in the Pyrenees, set at 430 metres above sea level on the slopes of the Canigou massif near the town of Prades in the Têt valley. The abbey flourished in the 10th and 11th centuries under Abbot Oliba, who also founded the famous monastery of Montserrat — placing Cuxa at the centre of early medieval Catalan religious culture. Famously, sections of the Romanesque cloister were sold off in the 19th century and eventually purchased by American sculptor George Grey Barnard; they now form the centrepiece of the Cloisters museum in New York City. Today a small Benedictine community still occupies the restored complex. Visitors encounter pre-Romanesque horseshoe arches, pink marble cloister capitals, and unobstructed views toward the Canigou, the sacred mountain of the Catalans.