Walking tour or MTB/gravel Saorge-Bain du Sémite via the olive grove and the ChestnutsTrail

From the esplanade of the Monastery where you can contemplate Saorge "village in the sky" hanging in ampitheatre from the restanques, enter a world of serenity: the baroque Franciscan convent, with the church and its terraced garden in a green valley.The village of Saorge overlooks the Roya Gorge at the gates of Mercantour Park. Listed at the Centre des Monuments Nationaux, the Monastery, a former Francosiscan convent founded in 1633, is baroque in style. It has retained its original structure, painted decorations and food garden. The Church has remarkable walnut woodwork, paintings and liturgical objects. The cloister is decorated with 17th century frescoes illustrating the episodes of the life of St Francis of Assisi, as well as an exceptional set of nine period sundials. The refectory preserves 17th-century frescoes on monastic virtues. The garden, a veritable haven of peace open to the mountains, consists of an organic vegetable garden and an orchard, arranged in terraces with several irrigation basins linked together. The monastery welcomes writers, translators, writers-in-residence writing from April to October. - For the visually impaired public, the Monastery offers mediation tools: a tactile model and tour guides in Braille and thermoformed leaflets, very well designed, produced by a specialised association in collaboration with the Valentin Haüy association. - For the mentally handicapped public, adapted tours are offered, in-house, by reservation. - For the deaf and hearing-impaired, the Monastery can call upon the services of LSF interpreters, externally, by reservation and only for groups. - To date, for the time being, no specific accessibility equipment is available for people with motor disabilities.

A village in the shape of an eagle's nest, Saorge is a monument in itself, a witness to medieval architecture. This village, which looks like a "Tibetan village", entirely listed, is an ancient fortress clinging to the side of the mountain in the shape of an amphitheatre.Saorge is an important point on the "Route of the Baroque and Historic Organs of the Roya Valley". A village with Ligurian origins, for a long time it was a stopover on the salt route, a strategic axis between France and Italy. It has a rich historical and religious heritage with, in addition to the Monastery, which is part of the National Monuments Centre, a Baroque church, three chapels and the remains of fortified castles. With its narrow streets and vaulted passages, once defended by three castles, the fortress of Saorge, reputed to be impregnable, was nicknamed "the lock of the Roya".

Completed around 1498 after a terrible fire, this church in the County of Nice was "baroque" in the 18th century. You will be struck by the slender grandeur of its decorum of stuccoes, rocailles, gilding, and its shades of mauve and salmon.

The church of the Madonna del Poggio proudly stands with its pure lines at the eastern entrance to Saorge; it can only be visited from the outside. In the year 1092, the community of men and women of Saorge donated a chapel Sainte Marie located in the "Poggio" to the Cistercian Abbey of the Iles de Lérins...

Pool of natural water suitable for swimming, also for children. To see/ to do also the canyon of the Bendola.