Sauvelade

Sauvelade is home to a former abbey with a complicated history. In 1127, Gaston IV le Croise, Viscount of Bearn, returning from the capture of Zaragoza, gave a Benedictine monk named Dom Helie the forest of Faget to build a monastery dedicated to the Virgin Mary. For 160 years it was Benedictine -- the Cistercian affiliation only came in 1286/1287, despite most sources shortening the story to "Cistercian abbey."

Montgomery burned the abbey on August 10, 1569 -- part of the same campaign that destroyed Caubin, Larreule, and Pimbo. By the 18th century only two monks remained. The Revolution confiscated what was left.

What survives is the church: a single nave with a dome surmounting the crossing, resting on arches supported by pilasters -- a rarity in the region. It's the only major surviving testimony of the abbey and worth stepping inside.