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Published: January 2nd 2011
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January 2, 2011
Today the sun shined brightly, but that ‘Mistral’ wind blew hard again; it was cold. No complaints though, the heat from the sun felt great - when you were out of the wind. We drove to the Carmargue, with Stes Maries de-la-Mer as our destination; a small town on the Mediterranean sea. As you leave Nimes, a town surrounded by vineyards, the land becomes very flat and clearly excellent agricultural land. Then the land changes again to marsh and estuaries; we saw many white horses typical of the Carmargue, and even some of the bulls used for bullfighting. They sure look a lot happier in the fields than running around the arenas .
Stes Maries de-la-Mer was disappointing. It has apparently changed much in the twenty years since Paul was last there; much more touristy. It does have a very interesting church though that dates from the 12th century. It was a place of refuge for the gypsy community – the nativity scene had many dolls dressed in what I assume were the local clothes, and it included a group of gypsy’s playing musical instruments. This town has a large gathering of gypsies each year and is apparently where ‘The Gypsy Kings’ are from.
We drove next to Aigue-Mortes, a very interesting town about 30 miles west of Stes Maries de-la-Mer. The historic centre is completely surrounded by fortified walls dating from the 12th century. It was amazing and so well preserved. It was fun walking the circumference of the city with a bird’s eye view from the top of the wall. The view from the top of the towers (about 8 of them) that housed the gates into the city was fabulous – you could see for miles because the land is so flat there. On one side you look out over water where the famous Carmargue salt is produced, the other side you see the two canals that served the old port, which gave Aigue-Mortes its purpose so long ago.
The history of the South of France is full of the conflict between the Protestants and the Catholics. Everywhere we go to see ancient buildings; inevitably there is mention of the wars between them. Most churches, it seems, were alternately controlled back and forth by each group with both of them committing violence—sometimes atrocities—against the other in an attempt to maintain that control. One story I heard was yesterday at the church in Elian’s childhood village. The church is Protestant, but the graveyard has only the Catholic dead because at one time when the church was under the control of the Catholics it was forbidden for Protestants to be buried next to the church. The Protestants therefore buried their dead on their farmland and over the years it became traditional—then legal—to do so. So when the church came back under the control of the Protestants they continued to bury their dead with their ancestors on their own land. Just down a narrow lane through the woods from Elian’s house we came across a small burial area with gravestones of family members who were, of course, Protestant.
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