Mont Sainte-Odile The Convent of Saint Odile

According to her Life, Odile was born blind in the late seventh century to Etichon, duke of Alsace, who rejected her, and she received her sight at her baptism. Her father later gave her his castle of Hohenbourg on the mountain, where she founded a convent and died around 720. She is the patron saint of Alsace.

Her tomb is in a chapel of the convent, on a summit about 2,500 feet high above the Alsace plain. Since 1931 groups of the faithful from all over Alsace have taken turns to keep perpetual adoration on the mountain, day and night. Around the summit runs the Pagan Wall, a stone enclosure more than six miles long whose date is still debated.

• The tomb of Saint OdileIn the chapel beside the convent church.
• The terraceA view over the Alsace plain to the Black Forest.
• The Pagan WallThe ancient wall in the forest around the summit.

• December 13, in AlsaceFeast of Saint Odile

• Saint OdileAbbess and patroness of Alsace

• Via NativitatisThe Christmas Way, six daysDay III, Mont Sainte-Odile, then Sélestat

About an hour by road from Strasbourg.

• SélestatThe Town of the First Christmas Trees, about 13 miles as the crow flies
• StrasbourgThe Cathedral of Notre-Dame of Strasbourg, about 19 miles as the crow flies
• ColmarThe Isenheim Altarpiece, about 25 miles as the crow flies
• MarienthalThe Basilica of Notre-Dame of Marienthal, about 30 miles as the crow flies