Our reason for going to Simacourbe was very specific: we wanted to see a real Carmelite convent. We had been looking for a functioning enclosed religious community in this part of the Pyrenees-Atlantiques, and in this tiny village we found the Carmel Notre-Dame de la Rencontre. This was therefore not simply another village that happened to be on our route; the convent was the reason for our stop, and it made Simacourbe one of the more unusual places we visited during this part of the journey.
The Carmel is not a tourist attraction in the normal sense. It is home to a contemplative community of Carmelite nuns, so most of the monastery belongs to the enclosure and is naturally not accessible to visitors. We could therefore see only the parts connected with the outside world rather than wandering through the convent itself. That was precisely what made the experience interesting: this was a living religious community rather than a former monastery converted into a museum. The atmosphere was completely different from visiting an historic abbey or church, because behind the walls the buildings are still being used for the daily rhythm of prayer, work and community life for which they were intended.
The community is known as the Carmel Notre-Dame de la Rencontre and has been established at Simacourbe since 2009. The Carmelite sisters acquired an existing property in the village and adapted it to monastic life, including accommodation, communal spaces, workshops and a chapel. The chapel provides the principal connection between the enclosed community and visitors, while the remainder of the convent remains part of the sisters’ private religious life. Carmelite spirituality traditionally places particular importance on silence, contemplation and prayer, inspired above all by figures such as Saint Teresa of Ávila and Saint John of the Cross.
Simacourbe itself could hardly provide a more appropriate setting. It is a very small rural commune in Béarn, surrounded by rolling countryside and scattered farms, with none of the noise or activity of a large town. The village has a much older religious history as well: its Église Saint-Pierre contains elements dating from the medieval period, and Simacourbe was historically the seat of an archpriesthood of the former Diocese of Lescar. Long before the arrival of the modern Carmelite community, religion therefore already formed part of the history of this small settlement.
For us, however, the most memorable part was simply going there specifically to see the convent and discovering what a functioning enclosed monastery is actually like from the outside. There was no elaborate visitor centre and no conventional sightseeing route through monastic rooms; instead, the boundaries between the public space and the sisters’ enclosed life were very clear. That made the stop more interesting rather than less so. After so many castles, museums and historic churches, Simacourbe gave us the opportunity to see a place where monastic life is not something preserved from the past, but something that is still being lived today.