A Catholic summer camp in France for teens 13–17
Campers live in community at the Abbey of Pontlevoy in the Loire Valley. They pray together each day, make pilgrimages, and bring a shared project to life. Session 1 campers also share visits and meals with French families.
The school behind the camp
Pontlevoy is a Catholic middle and high school that boards teenagers all year, with its own priests and traditions. Campers are welcomed into its daily life.
"While you have time, do good."
Carved beneath the sundial on the Abbey's cloister wall, and the school's motto for every student and teacher.
Four priests of the Communauté Saint-Martin serve permanently on the school's educational team. The community draws many priestly vocations and is a significant part of France's spiritual renewal. Its priests live and pray in community.
The school sets out to form mind, body and soul. That work happens in ordinary details: keeping a room in order, taking responsibility, growing in confidence and learning to choose the good. Older students sponsor younger ones and pass on what they received, and true friendship is an explicit goal of boarding life.
Around the school, the Abbey runs Stella Maris, a home and training program for young adults with disabilities. Service is part of ordinary life here.
Daily prayer and spiritual guidance with the camp chaplain, Don Enguerrand de Lorgeril. Session 1 includes pilgrimages to Mont-Saint-Michel, Lisieux and Notre-Dame de Paris.
Campers live together at the Abbey and share their meals. Living, praying and working side by side, they form friendships that last well beyond the summer.
Americans have studied at Pontlevoy since the 1700s. Campers retrace two centuries of shared history, from the American Revolution to D-Day.
Campers bring this history to life, in a film about two friends across two centuries or in the Abbey's live historical pageant. Working as one cast and crew, they learn to rely on one another, see a project through to the end, and go home with something they made together.
Sports and the outdoors
Sport is part of every camp day in the Abbey's park and on its playing fields. Campers play team sports and outdoor games suited to every level, from beginners to varsity athletes. It is where many camp friendships start.
Pontlevoy takes rugby seriously. In 2023, a week before the Rugby World Cup opened in France, the school hosted the first Rugby Heritage Cup, a world tournament for school teams from 20 nations. Campers who want to try the game will have the chance.
Both sessions share the same life of prayer and community at the Abbey. They differ in their project and their journeys.
Session 1: film
June 5 – 26, 2027. Three weeks, 32 spots.
Session 2: theater
June 28 – July 15, 2027. Two and a half weeks, 15 spots.
Session 1: film
June 5 – 26, 2027Three weeks, 32 spots
Together, campers write and shoot a 7–8 minute film in English. It tells the story of two friends and two destinies across two centuries of friendship between France and America, inspired by the young men educated at Pontlevoy who carried their formation across the Atlantic.
Scriptwriting and filming with professional equipment. Every camper has a role, and the film succeeds only if they work as one.
Visits (without overnight stays) and meals with local host families, practicing French and experiencing family life.
The abbey of Saint Michael the Archangel on its tidal island, a place of pilgrimage for more than a thousand years.
Three days in Normandy in all.
A private tour of the family home of the Comte de Rochambeau, who led the French army alongside Washington at Yorktown.
From Montmartre to Notre-Dame Cathedral.
Session 2: theater
June 28 – July 15, 2027Two and a half weeks, 15 spots
Campers join the cast and crew of Les Héritiers de Pontlevoy, the Abbey's summer sound and light show. With sixty actors and volunteers, they tell a thousand years of the Abbey's history, from its founding to the present day.
Acting and choreography, in speaking roles or as extras.
Sound, lighting, set design, front of house and security.
For families willing to make the journey and see the show.
Families come to the Abbey to see the shows and explore the Loire Valley.
Campers and families travel to Paris together for private tours, a gala dinner and VIP seats on the Champs-Élysées for the Bastille Day parade. The day ends with the fireworks over the Eiffel Tower.
Families can then travel on their own or are welcome to return to the Abbey for a family retreat (with French families and a translation service).
Weekdays at the Abbey follow a steady rhythm. Trip days and weekends have their own schedule.
Mass and prayer. Mass: Tuesdays at 5:30 p.m. for all; Wednesday–Friday at 8:00 a.m., optional; Sundays at the parish church.
Not included for either session: airfare to France, personal insurance.
Weekly figures are rounded. Students from partner schools receive reduced tuition; to learn about becoming a partner school, contact us.
Campers are supervised around the clock by the camp team, alongside the Abbey's boarding staff. There is one adult for every 6 campers, and staff sleep in the boarding houses with them.
Yes. Boys and girls sleep in separate boarding houses, as they do during the school year, each supervised by staff of the same sex.
Every adult working with campers undergoes a background check under French regulations for youth programs and follows the Abbey's child-protection policy, available on request.
A nurse is on call at all times. The nearest hospital is in Blois, about 25 minutes away. Parents are contacted right away in case of any medical concern.
Screen time is limited so campers can live fully in the community. Campers call home twice a week, and the team sends parents photos and news each week. Parents can reach the camp director at any time.
Campers pray together every day with the chaplain. Mass is celebrated on Tuesdays at 5:30 p.m. for everyone, and on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at 8:00 a.m. for those who wish to attend. On the other mornings, the day begins with morning prayer, and on Sundays campers attend Mass at the parish church. Compline, the night prayer, is said every evening at 9:30 p.m. Confession is offered each week.
Session 1 campers visit families from the Abbey's school community for meals, without sleeping over. The families are known to the staff and visited beforehand.
No. Session 1 activities and the film are in English. Session 2: some knowledge of French is helpful.
Families book flights to Paris. Campers are met at Paris-Charles de Gaulle on the first day and travel to the Abbey with staff by train.
Families arrange personal travel and medical insurance for the length of the session.
Both projects draw on this history, and campers live inside it every day.
The Abbey is founded. The knight Gelduin, saved from a storm at sea, dedicates his estate to Our Lady. A school grows up around the monastery.
Richelieu’s intervention brings new life to the abbey.
American students arrive. By 1866 more than 55 students from the United States, many from Louisiana and the East Coast, have enrolled.
A Royal Military College. Louis XVI makes Pontlevoy one of twelve Royal Military Colleges. James Le Ray de Chaumont, whose father hosted Benjamin Franklin in France, is a student in this era.
The Armstrong sons. The four sons of John Armstrong, U.S. minister to France and a Revolutionary War veteran, enroll.
An American hospital. Until 1919 the Abbey houses a U.S. Army hospital for the 41st "Sunset" Division.
The Eur-Am Center. Until 2017, American college students come to study French language, history and art.
The summer camp. American teenagers return to Pontlevoy, seven years before the Abbey's thousandth anniversary.
