Chartreuse de la Verne

Chartreuse de la Verne is a former Carthusian monastery tucked deep in the cork-oak and chestnut forests of the Massif des Maures, a few kilometres from the village of Collobrières in the Var department of Provence. Built largely from local serpentine rock, its walls carry a distinctive greenish tint that sets it apart from the pale limestone monuments more commonly seen across Provence.

How old is the monastery?

The community traces its origins to around 1170, when the bishops of Toulon and Fréjus decided to establish a new religious house and entrusted it to the Carthusian order, which already had an existing community at nearby Montrieux. The first Romanesque church was consecrated on 3 October 1174. Generous donations from local nobility allowed the monastery to grow quickly, and at its peak the Carthusians administered an estate of more than 3,000 hectares of forest, pasture, farmland and salt works.

What did the monastery go through over the centuries?

Its remote position deep in the Maures massif did not spare La Verne from violence or disaster. In 1416 the site was raided and looted by the lords of Bormes, and several fires over the following centuries reduced parts of the buildings to ashes more than once. Each time, the monks rebuilt. The community's religious life came to an end with the French Revolution: in 1789 the Constituent Assembly ordered the confiscation of the monastery's property, and a 1790 inventory recorded a community of sixteen members - eleven fathers and five lay brothers. Once the monks were expelled, the buildings were left to decay for nearly two centuries.

Why does the stone look green?

Restoration only began in 1968, when Anne Englebert and Annick Lemoine founded the association "Les Amis de la Verne" to save the site from further collapse. Over roughly fifteen years, the association's teams rebuilt portals, pediments and arcades using serpentine, a hard green stone quarried locally in the Maures massif. The stone had already appeared in earlier medieval construction, and its reuse during the restoration turned it into the visual signature of the whole site, blending the monastery into its wooded surroundings.

Who lives there today?

In 1982, once the main rescue works were complete, monastic life returned to La Verne: monks moved in first, and from the mid-1980s the site was entrusted to nuns of the Bethlehem, Assumption of the Virgin and Saint Bruno monastic family. Their arrival brought further restoration, including the revival of the Romanesque church and the large cloister. Because the sisters live a contemplative, largely silent life, the interior of the monastery is closed to visitors - only the exterior, the church and the surrounding grounds can be seen.

Frequently asked questions

Where exactly is Chartreuse de la Verne located? It stands in the heart of the Massif des Maures, within the commune of Collobrières, in the Var department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region.

Can visitors go inside the monastery? No. Contemplative nuns live on site, so access is limited to the courtyard, the exterior walls and the church at set opening times.

How do you get there? Most visitors arrive via forest roads from Collobrières or Grimaud, with the final stretch covered on foot or by car along a narrow, winding track through the woods.

Why do the walls have a greenish colour? Because of the local serpentine stone, a hard green rock quarried in the Massif des Maures and used extensively during the monastery's restoration.