French Letter 2

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Les Bordes, October 30th, 2009

When I first arrived, I woke to the soft sounds of the curlews chattering in the trees opposite. The next sounds are the voices of our near neighbours. Madame has stentorian tones that echo around the neighbourhood. She waters her pot plants at midnight and cossets two large caged birds that hold great fascination for the many local cats, who admire them with longing glances.

When I opened the shutters this morning, I was greeted by the charming sight of a small girl skipping down the road talking to a large black dog, a tiny grey one and a white cat. The quartet trotted happily into the distance in single file.

Most of our numerous visitors have had to endure the indigestion that follows a six-course lunch at the local Auberge. The food, prepared and mostly grown on the farm, is fabulous. The mitigating circumstance is we can walk there. At one such lunch, we noted a sign on the door advertising country dancing with an evening meal and decided to sign up for the following Saturday night. Five assorted females rolled up at the appointed hour to be greeted by a young man, rather fetching truth to tell, in a red bustier, black skirt, fishnets and a chic black bob. The overall effect was somewhat diminished by the doc marten type footwear. We scarcely recognized him when he reappeared in normal garb, with no hair at all, but the shoes gave him away.

Our hostess was kindness itself and introduced us to a couple of locals who could speak some English. As it happens, one of these has a holiday house here in the village. He told us that in La France profonde (the deep south) country dancing is “a la mode.” Imagine our surprise when the country dancing started, for line dancing was the order of the day. The gathered throng about 60 strong, were decked out in cowboy boots, hats, the obligatory fringed garments and an assortment of jeans, skirts and frocks. All the music was country and western and I guess we were among the few who could understand the words. We endured until about 11pm before we disappeared into the night to the sounds of “Whisky in the Jar.”

Pat and Helen, two friends from England were here for a week towards the end of September. As a ‘thank you’ they took us for dinner to a local restaurant Le Palet des Delices run by Xavier, a Spanish guy who has lived in the area for six years. He was charming, kept us entertained and at the end of the meal, treated us to a digestif on the house. He has since adopted us, and has become known as “the Spaniard who brightened our lives,” because of his ability to flirt in turn with each of the lady guests. He often knocks at the back door of an evening bearing gifts. He turned up one afternoon in his cycling strip. There’s nothing quite like a manly figure in lycra!

For most French people, the Ariege region remains largely undiscovered. We are told that if a Parisian were asked where the Ariege was, they wouldn’t know. When the locals find out where we come from, they are amazed. “It’s so far away,” they say. There is a lovely elderly couple Madame Marie-Therese and her husband, accompanied by a small dog, who totter by every couple of days on their promenade. Out by the front gate is a collection of flowerpots and Marie-Therese takes care of them. She told me that she has lived here in Les Bordes all her married life, some 55 years and before that in Dun another village about 15kms away. I asked her if she had ever been to Paris and her reply was “Yes, but only on television.”

For lovers of history, the Ariege is a treasure trove, with an appealing combination of historic sites and attractive rolling landscapes with the Pyrenees floating in a lilac haze forming the backdrop.

Most interesting of all are the last strongholds of the Cathars, fortified castles perched atop precipitous cliffs around the foothills of the Pyrenees. The Cathars were a religious sect that flourished in medieval southern France. They believed that the world of the spirit was good while the material world was evil and they were fatally critical of the corruption of the established church. The Cathars were declared heretics by the Catholic Church and following the murder of a Papal legate in 1208, Pope Innocent III and the French King joined forces and, in 1209, sent the Crusaders lead by the ruthless Simon de Montfort to the area. The heretics sought refuge in the isolated castles of the region where, for the next 30 years, a bloody war ensued. In 1244 after a 10-month siege, the last of the Cathars surrendered at Montsegur, where those that refused to recant, more than 200, men, women and children, were burned alive on a vast pyre.
The castles we have visited, Peyrepertuse, Foix, Montsegur and Carcassonne, were among those that played their parts in the Cathar Crusades.

Mirepoix, our local town is almost completely medieval in character and is one of 300 towns built in southern France during the 13th and 14th centuries. The basic design was a grid of streets around a central arcaded square with fortified walls. In the 19th century, they become known as ‘bastides’ from the French verb ‘to build’ (batir). Originally, Mirepoix was defended with thick walls and a moat, but these were removed late in the 17th Century and only vestiges of them remain today. The main square is surrounded by wooden arches topped with magnificent half-timbered houses. The beams of the House of Consuls have incredible carvings of humans, animals and monsters. The cathedral of St. Maurice was consecrated in 1298 and has the widest gothic nave in France.

There are so many places of interest nearby, that it is hard to know where to start, but we have made valiant attempts to see as many as possible without tiring ourselves unduly. These are some of the places that we have visited.

Albi, like Toulouse, is a ville rose, built of the pink brick. Its star attraction is the magnificent St. Cecile Cathedral, apparently the largest brick building in Europe and a masterpiece of Gothic art. Built between the 13th and 16th centuries, the mighty walls, buttressed with enormous piers are astonishing; it looks like a rocket ship about to levitate. The nave, some 30 metres high, built without pillars, is a brightly coloured testament to the fine work of Italian artists who decorated passages from the Old and New Testaments on a brilliant azure background. A fresco of the Last Judgement, albeit with a large chunk missing after a Bishop, in a misguided fit of DIY, knocked a hole in it to add another altar,, shows the earth, sky and hell where the damned are punished for their crimes. The chancel screen is also fabulous. Built between 1477 and 1484, the filigree of carved limestone that makes up the rood screen is quite amazing. All in all, St. Cecile has to be one of the finest cathedrals in Europe; certainly, it is one of the most appealing.

Across from the cathedral, the former Bishop’s palace, Palais de la Berbie, now houses the Toulouse Lautrec Museum. Lautrec was born in Albi and after his death in 1901, his mother bequeathed his works to the city of Albi after the Louvre turned them down. The palace houses several hundred of his works including portraits of Parisian notables of the 19th century, as well as landscapes, studies of horses and the dance hall posters that we associate with Lautrec.

A little way south of here are a number of prehistoric caves. Those at Niaux have some of the finest cave paintings in Europe with drawings of bison, horses and deer. We joined a group of about 20 on a guided visit. Carrying torches, we slithered along narrow paths between the stalagmites and the stalactites, the wonders to behold. The artists had used the contours of the rocks to give the impression of movement and it was wonderful to see them. Handrails, walkways and the like were practically non-existent. It seems that the French concept of health and safety bears little resemblance to ours.

We loved Nimes, a town of some 140,000 inhabitants, with its Roman ruins, quaint pedestrian streets, shady squares, fountains, a crocodile as emblem and a fabulous restaurant! We spent a night there in an inexpensive hostelry with a lute-playing owner.

Most impressive is Les Arenes, a perfectly formed oval arena, constructed in the first century AD and still in use today for bullfights. The city’s other Roman glory is the Maison Carree, 2000 years old and beautifully proportioned, it now houses a theatre where one dons 3D glasses to view gladiators attacking you with the points of their various weapons.

We had the best meal of our stay thus far at the aptly named Aux Plaisirs des Halles, a cosy wood panelled bistro in Nimes. Myrtie indulged in veal’s brains, while Sue and I were a tad more conventional with the set menu - all of fish. It was absolument delicieux, washed down with a lovely bottle of the local red.

Near Nimes is the beautiful Pont du Gard, a magnificent Roman aqueduct of three great tiers of golden limestone arches. Some of the stones bear the marks of the original Roman builders along with graffiti left by the French journeymen masons. We walked across from one side to the other and marvelled.

We are enjoying an Indian summer. After a brief cold snap, when we had some fires, the weather has warmed up again to about 22 degrees during the day and after packing them up, we have had to break out the summer clothes once more.

There may not be a next time, as we have only two weeks remaining, but hope you have enjoyed reading about our travels.

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Photos

Mirepoix
Wooden carvings on the Maison du Conseils

Les Bordes
View from the bedroom window

Nimes
The Roman arena at Nimes

Peyrepertuse
A Cathar stronghold

In the village
Brooke goes for a spin for the first time in 20 years

In the village
Madame Marie-Therese, husband and the pooch take a constitutional

Mirepoix
The medieval arcades around the square

Pont du Gard
The roman aqueduct

Grotte de Niaux
The antipodean contingent waits to enter the famous caves.

St. Girons market
Undergarments of a sort seldom seen in the modern world.

Les Bordes
A neighbour's artistic wood pile