A classic example of Romanesque church architecture, this abby was built about 1140. With its three vaulted domes, the interior space is large yet comfortable. Parts of old Souillac, including the plaza around the Abbatiale Sainte-Marie, have not changed much in hundreds of years. Most of the week, this is a timeless place, one can feel temporally displaced, anachronistic. But on Saturdays, this plaza and all of the surrounding narrow streets and lanes are filled with the weekly market, the vendors selling everything from fruits to mushrooms to garlic to fish to meat to duck to foie gras to blue jeans to hand bags to flip-flops to leather wallets to tin cups to kitchen ware to...
Copyright 2009 by William Tenney. All photography, artwork, images, and sound recordings on this site are the property of William Tenney.