Here is a picture of the Holy Cross Abbey at Berryville, Virginia. You can't see the guest house I stayed in with the other 13 retreatants. It's off to the right of the picture.




You can see the original stone farm house on the right. It is the only part of the abbey that guests can go into. There are actually artifacts in the second floor from the Civil War battle of Cool Springs fought in the fields behind the abbey. One of the monks found them and became fascinated with the battle. He wrote a little book about it that you can buy at the gift shop. I found it a little disconcerting to find a
book about a battle in a monastic gift shop, but then, it is Virginia and it is right outside Winchester which must have the record for being captured, recaptured and fought over.

There are other pictures of the abbey and a brief description here. You can see a closer picture of the farmhouse that was built in 1784. The next picture down is looking down the road that leads up to the front of the farmhouse. I tried to walk out that road every day at least once. I took my binoculars and enjoyed watching the monks feeding and tending to the cattle out in the fields on either side of the road.

The guest house was about a quarter of a mile to the right of the picture above and the Shenandoah River was a bit less than another quarter of a mile beyond that. Right on the other side of the river the Blue Ridge Mountains reached up and on the other side of them - Loudoun County where I grew up. That was the main reason why I picked this particular monastery.