In 1120, Adalard, Viscount of Flanders, was crossing the Aubrac plateau on the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St James). Attacked by brigands on these hostile heights — "a place of horror and vast solitude," as the old texts put it — he vowed that, should he survive, he would found a hospital there to protect pilgrims. And so the Dômerie d'Aubrac was born.
Run by monks, by knights charged with defending travellers, and by women who tended to them, the Dômerie (from the Latin dominus — the "dom" who led it) welcomed, fed and sheltered thousands of pilgrims on their way to Santiago, Rocamadour or Jerusalem.
Five bells kept watch in its bell tower. One of them, the famous "Maria" — nicknamed the bell of the lost — would ring for hours on days of snow and fog to guide walkers who had strayed across the plateau; it could be heard, they say, for leagues around.
Nearly nine centuries later, La Domerie carries on that spirit of welcome in its own way: offering today's travellers a warm refuge in the heart of the Aubrac.
