
Recently on Amazon Prime’s series “Three Pines” I was surprised to find myself in a former Benedictine monastery I knew well. Three Pines as you may know is based on the Inspector Gamache series of novels by Canadian author Louise Penny. One of the series, The Beautiful Mystery, is in fact set in a remote abbey, but this is not the one I saw in the TV show. Long-term readers of my blog may in fact remember a couple of entries about the Benedictine Priory of Montreal, and how, once it had closed, on occasion the former monastery served as a site to film movies or TV episodes. This was the case in episodes 5 and 6 of the first season of Three Pines where a family member is murdered in the family-owned hotel. The former mansion, which later became a real monastery, now serves as a fictional hotel where Armand Gamache will seek for the killer. It was extraordinary for me to stream through those rooms and hallways once again.
You can see in the two photos at the top of the page the former priory’s oratory where Christian meditation was practiced and a still from the Prime series of the Morrow family meeting in one of the hotel’s rooms. Yes the two rooms are the same!
