Discovering Minerve

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Amazing how plans can change with the arrival of sunshine. After overnight rain and the day dawning rather gloomily we had planned to visit the old town of Carcassonne. But with the sun shining brightly and with a feeling of adventure we decided to drive in the opposite direction and explore the little towns in the hills.
The roads were quite quiet and soon we came across a gem of a village, Minerve. The town was set on an outcrop of rock surrounded on three sides by a deep ravine created by a river cutting through the limestone. Minerve is probably one of many tucked away in the countryside with a history going back many hundreds of years. This little village had been on this rocky outcrop for some time before being attacked by Simon de Montfort in 1210.
The town can be accessed by an old stone bridge or take a kilometre drive to a specially designated car park. The narrow road into the village passed through the last remaining tower of the old town gate. Once inside the village we followed the few cobble streets and visited some of the artisan shops. One gallery had a display by various glass artists of drinking glasses with a difference. We took the opportunity of talking to the young woman looking after the premises, commenting on how we were enjoying our ramble through the village and that we had visited Carcassonne yesterday. Her reaction to present day Carcassonne was interesting. She likened it to Disneyland.
As we were leaving the village two tour buses arrived as well as quite a number of cars and a group of Harley Davidson Motorcycle enthusiasts from Toulouse. The quiet little town was now very busy. We were sure the shop owners will be very happy, especially the museum owner who had worked hard to encourage us in, but was to be disappointed.
The drive back took us along an increasingly narrow road following a deep gorge before joining a much wider road that we hoped would take us to Carcassonne for one final explore. Soon we were to find ourselves at the tail of a very long slow line of cars heading home at the end of a weekend. After a quick team meeting it was decided to turn around and head back to Homps for a wander around the canal and village. The village is a major anchorage on the Canal de Midi and we got into conversation with an Australian who was on a seven day cruise in a very smart pleasure craft. So looks like a quick visit back into Carcassonne tomorrow morning while on our way to Millau.

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