… driving from Romorentain to Dunkirk: 482 km. See? After a fortnight of spring and summer days, the weather’s getting us ready for England again.
Still, it’s not all bad. We dropped lucky on our last night’s chambre d’hôte.
The landscape near Minerve, and out in the midst of it wild daffodils, a mere eight centimetres high. Blurry photos? Windy day.
Can you spot the secret garage?
We’re on our way to Spain to see daughter and family, trundling down through eastern France. Now we’re in the Aube, in Troyes. It’s been a successful city since Roman times, but what you see now is a place that still has hundreds of half-timbered houses. Still lived in, still used as shops and business-places. A few are in bad nick. Some are being renovated. Some lean at impossibly drunken angles. Most are well cared for and entirely habitable, just getting on with life, as they have been for centuries. And a few of them provide a convenient surface for discreet pieces of street art.
We both had an affair on holiday. It was a delight while it lasted, and when it ended, as it had to, there were no hard feelings. We’d like to do it again.
We both fell in love with the Corrèze in the Limousin. As far as the eye could see there were majestic rolling hills: forested, green, largely uninhabited other than by the occasional herd of Limousin cattle. Settlements were well-ordered and charming towns and villages, often demonstrating a history dating back to the Middle Ages and beyond. Of course we were smitten.
Then we continued on to our old stamping ground in the Ariège. Not all of this département is actually in the Pyrenees, but the mountains are always visible. And as soon as we saw them again, we knew our affair was over.
The Pyrenees tug at our hearts like no other landscape. The gentle foothills are given added character by the backdrop of the mountains. We used to watch for the first flurries of snow on the peaks, maybe in September, while we were still in t-shirts.
Anyone living in the Ariège could name the peaks, count them as their friends – Le pic de Saint-Barthélemy, le Pic des Trois Seigneurs, Montségur. Locals would tell you, every spring, exactly how little snow should remain on the high slopes before you could plant your spuds and beans. They would be the ones to relish the mountains in every way. They’d grab their snowshoes as the snow deepened to enjoy a silent walk in the crisp, cold empty landscape.
They’d know where to look for alpine strawberries in summer, and have secret places that they wouldn’t tell their closest friends about where they’d gather mushrooms in autumn.
They loved the rugged beauty of the mountains as we did, from the majesty of the snow-covered peaks, to the riot of wild daffodils, then gentians in spring, to the muted soft green palette of the hillsides at dusk on a summer’s evening, to the rich russets and golds of the autumn woodland.
I can’t visit the mountains though without being aware they demand our respect. They’re mighty, rugged and visually stunning. As we gaze at lines of rock, crumpled in geological eras long past, as we look at tumbled boulders lining the valley floor, or delicate but dangerous sheets of scree, they remind us that, compared with them, we are here on earth for a very short space of time. They have witnessed civilisations and religions rise and fall, harboured refugees from war and conflict, provided impenetrable barriers to would-be conquerors and generally put us in our place. It’s this combination of love and respect for them that draws me and moors me to them. Mere hills and plains simply can’t compete.
Today’s Ragtag Daily Prompt is ‘Rugged’.
Click on any image to view full size.
I can’t look at a picture of the Pyrenees without wishing I were there.
When we lived in France, these mountains were the constant backdrop to our lives. They were our playground, where we would enjoy flower-studded meadows in the spring, clear bright summer heat, autumn colours to rival those of New England, and glittering winter snowscapes. Winter and summer, we walked these mountains, climbing hundreds of feet to be rewarded over a leisurely lunch-time picnic by views of valleys, forests and dramatic rocks, before we had to descend to the foothills once more.
They were a natural boundary – often a barricade – between France and Spain, and the few roads linking these countries make wonderfully scenic journeys in their own right.
Travelling to our French town from England, we always knew we’d arrived ‘home’ when we caught sight of the Pyrenees once more – almost always as the sun was setting. The first glimpse of those jagged peaks, whose shapes and names we came to recognise so well always made me as emotional as if I’d just met once more a long-lost friend.
‘Wanderlust’, this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge, means a strong desire to wander, travel and explore. I know I’ve hardly begun to know the Pyrenees. They are where I want to travel, to wander, and above all to explore.
Look! Here is a post of mine from more than three years ago. It could have been written to fulfil this weeks’s WordPress photo challenge: Names
Arrive in Calais, and all you have to do is drive about 700 miles south, as straight a route as you can, to find our house. En route you’ll pass scores of towns and villages dedicated to saints you’ve never heard of. Holy men and women such as:
I thought it was time to unearth a story or two. So I dug out our dictionary of saints, which dates from my student days when I needed to know about such things, and then I put Google to work. Nothing. Almost nothing. Not even on the websites of the communes themselves. There was the odd reference to a bishop who’d led a blameless life, but positively no ripping yarns. Where’s the fun in that?
The story of St. Wilgefort was the kind of thing I had in mind. In England we know her as St. Uncumber (you knew that, didn’t you?). Her father, a Portuguese nobleman, wanted to marry her off to some pagan king. As she’d taken a vow of virginity, she was not inclined to fall in with the plan. Her prayers to become repulsive to her suitor were answered when she grew a beard. Enraged, her father had her crucified. For many years during the Middle Ages, she was venerated by people seeking solace from tribulation, and particularly by women who wanted to be liberated – unencumbered – from their abusive husbands.
If you have any stories of forgotten French saints, I’d love to hear them.
An ancient doorway of one of those half-timbered houses. 
The spire of Saint Ouen, glimpsed down a narrow street. 
What is this mysterious and mythical creature? 
Skyscape. 
Saint Maclou,its spire clean and restored, but still not re-opened for business. 
The Aitre de Saint Maclou. Once filled with wretched corpses, it’s now an art school. 
Another ginnel. 
Outside the modern, and slightly wacky church dedicated to St. Joan of Arc. The ruins of the church of St. Vincent are just visible in the foreground.. 
Inside the church of St. Joan of Arc. The stained glass comes from the destroyed church of St. Vincent. 
Glance upwards when visiting the cathedral of Notre Dame, and this is what you’ll see. 
Notre Dame. Looking towards the high altar, then ever upwards. 
A ravaged Old Testament prophet in the Cathedral. 
Au revoir Rouen. A plus tard.
Time for another trip to England (purpose of visit: to attend several 60th birthday celebrations). We generally try to visit somewhere new to us on our journey back, but this time, we decided to spend time in a town we’ve passed through maybe dozens of times, without spending time in anything more exciting than a traffic jam. Rouen was to be our mini-break destination.
We’re back in France. It’s hot. Very hot. Humid too. And yesterday we returned Emily to Barcelona, the city she now considers home. Barcelona was very hot indeed, 38.5 degrees Centigrade actually, which is 101.3 Fahrenheit in old money.
To get to Spain we crossed the Pyrénées where, for the past month or so, fires caused by the extreme dry conditions have been fairly out of control: mainly in Spanish Catalonia, but spreading through to the Catalan area of France too.
Now though, there are fires near L’Hospitalet-près-l’Andorre. This little commune is by way of being a frontier settlement between France, Spain and Andorra. It’s unaccustomed to being newsworthy outside the pages of tourist brochures aimed at those wanting mountain scenery and an energetic walking holiday.
We knew that so far, and thankfully, no human settlements are at risk from the fires. We knew too that all the walkers’ footpaths have been closed and so have the refuges, which offer basic accommodation and food to roughie-toughie hikers miles from normal civilisation. We’d heard that more than 25 tourists had been evacuated from deep in the area some days before. We didn’t expect to see from the road evidence of these fires, which have burnt and ravaged over 400 hectares of the countryside.
But as we approached the village, traffic slowed. Bit by bit, we snaked up the mountain road which, as it turned out, had been reduced to a single carriageway. A lay-by outside l’Hospitalet has been commandeered and enlarged by the army and fire services to provide a heli-port. The fires are in thickly forested areas some 2400 metres high, and inaccessible to land-based fire-fighters. Trackers (air-borne fire-engines) have come from Carcassonne, and scoop some of the water they need to quench the flames from our nearby reservoir here at Montbel. Expertise and equipment have been borrowed from other areas of southern France, and both army and fire service are on duty 24 hours a day.
Seeing some helicopters temporarily at rest together with their crews, brought home to us the real dangers of fighting these fires: they obstinately refuse to submit to man’s control in isolated and largely unreachable forests. It was only on our journey home that we noticed, high above us, several fires at altitude, burning the trees and vegetation. It may be a long time before the fire-fighters can go home, certain in the knowledge that this round of drought-induced danger to man and wildlife is really over. The rain promised this weekend should help.
My photos, by the way, are pretty poor. This is because they were taken from a moving car
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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