From Pyrenees to Pennines

Man on a warm tiled roof: woman on a warm tiled roof

Malcolm at work.

Scarey at the top!

Don’t look down!

Don’t stand up!

This is our enemy: moss.

And lichen.

It’s five years since we were last up there, and it shows. That roof of ours needs a good clean-up, just as much as any other part of the house, because if we don’t…. it leaks. You’d think that a good coat of grime and lichens, with a thick crust of moss nudging at the edges of the tiles would provide a nice impenetrable and insulating covering to help the roof in its task. But no. Rain soaks into the moss, and wiggles its way into the roof space and then our attic. It’s not managed to break through yet, but time is not on our side.

We have a routine. An early breakfast, so we can get as much done as we can before the sun gets too hot. By quarter to 8, we’ve rounded up old pointy knives, wire brushes, lengths of thick wire, softer brushes, knee pads, kneelers, a bottle of drink: and up we climb onto the roof, via our roof terrace.

We’re neither of us wild about heights, me especially. But it’s not quite as scary as it looks. The pitch of our roof is quite gentle, and we can move about more safely than you’d think, though at considerable damage to our knees. We try to divide the roof into work zones and fail. It’s easy to go off piste when one tile looks so much like another. But we both scrape and scratch and pry away at springy cushions of moss, yellow puddles of lichen, odd tile chippings.

A couple of hours on, one of us will say: ‘It’s getting hot. Had enough?’ Neither of us needs asking twice. We each sweep our section of roof carefully, round up our tools and put them away, ease our aching bodies into the shower….. and flop, fit for nothing much at all, at least until lunchtime. Malcolm at least is allowed this luxury. He’s 73, long past the age at which most roofers begin their careers.

We’ve had three sessions already. Might a fourth see the job done?

What’s the point of horse flies?

There’s a series on BBC Radio 4 that somehow I’ve never caught up with on i-player. It’s called ‘What’s the point of….?’ and examines a whole range of British institutions, from the Tate Gallery at the more serious end of the spectrum, to lawns and pubs at the other. Though some right-thinking Englishmen might argue that nothing could be more important than a well-kept lawn and a drink in your local after you’ve finished mowing same.

I have a suggestion for a programme, though the subject that interests me isn’t a British institution. But I really need to know.

What’s the point of horse flies?

Thanks to Dennis Ray and Wikimedia Commons for this graphic image of a happy horsefly

Out walking at this time of year, some – but not all of us – have come to dread being near horses, cattle or still water. Because when we’re near any of them, we’re likely suddenly to feel a sharp piercing of our skin, as a horse fly eagerly pumps poison into our flesh whilst sucking our blood. It’s not easily brushed away. In the hours that follow, our skin swells, and for several nights, sleep will elude us as we scratch frantically at our fiery, itchy, tightly inflamed skin. These nasty creatures are pretty immune to any repellents, though a cocktail of essential oils such as lavender, melissa and tea-tree sometimes helps. Nor have I found any remedy soothing after the event.

So what are they for? It’s bad enough for us humans, but cattle and horses seem truly to suffer all summer long, as flies of all kinds cluster round their eyes and mouths, resisting all attempts to flick them away.

Here be horseflies.... — Here be horseflies….

.... and here be horse flies — …. and here be horse flies

Apparently they make a tasty snack for a swallow or a frog. I’m sorry, that’s no good. There are plenty of other insects about, so their having a place in the food chain simply isn’t justification enough.

And while we’re about it, what’s the point of ticks? And mosquitos? And another thing. Why do I get so many bites from all of the above while Malcolm, and so many of my other friends, are blissfully immune?

Mountain Apollo

I just want to share a photo I took on our walk on Sunday, when we went to the Gorges de la Frau. This butterfly seduced us all with its distinctive spots and white grisaille wings. It turns out to be rare, a protected species, and known only in mountain regions, mainly in Southern Europe. The French know it as Apollon, and its Latin name is Parnassius Apollo. If your French is up to it, you can read about it here.

And here’s a small taste of the Gorges de la Frau, only a few miles from our house.

Fireworks at Puivert

Late on Wednesday afternoon we went to Puivert. Why not? It’s a pretty town not far from here, with a beach beside a charming lake.

When we arrived at 5 o’clock, the car park was already almost full. We weren’t surprised. Nobody was leaving the beach: in fact, like us, dozens of people were making tracks for it, burdened with swimming gear, beach towels, fold-up chairs, picnic hampers.

We were getting there early, to make sure of a grand-stand view. After the regular summer-Wednesday-evening market, there was going to be a firework display, and we knew it would be good. We picked our spot under a tree and near the lake. Nearby, a musician set up his stall, and his balladeering (think Simon and Garfunkel) helped while away the evening. A spot of swimming (not for me, not this time) a spot of people watching, and soon it was time to think about food. About half those market-traders had set up stoves and ovens and complicated gas-rings and were busy slicing, stirring, grilling, frying and baking to provide meals for the hundreds of us who planned to eat ‘sur place’ as the evening wore on and darkness fell. What to choose. Local grilled meat? Tapas? Pizza? Something salady? Paella? Something oriental? Wandering round in a state of terminal indecision’s part of the fun.

We chose paella, Susie and I, our young companions went Chinese, and we all finished off with sheep’s milk ice-cream (rose petal’s very good, so’s speculoos).

Then it was time to move nearer the water, listen to the nearby singer and the croaking frogs, and wait for darkness.

I enjoy fireworks. But about 10-15 minutes is usually enough. There are only so many rockets and golden fountains you can exclaim over. This though, was different.

As it became truly night, laser beams (‘testing, testing’) drew blue lines and beams across the darkness. White smoke emerged from large pipes at the water’s edge, and billowed softly across the lake. What on earth?

Then it began. Laser beams drew architect’s plans in the sky. These futuristic ‘buildings’ revealed clouds above them: ah! That’s what the smoke was for. And above them, orange and red firework fountains dripped from the sky, seen through the ‘ceilings’ and the clouds. The laser drawings slipped and slid, plunged and dived, in an ever-changing palette of electric blues, citric greens, livid yellows and magenta. The fireworks went relentlessly on, mirroring the insistent rhythms of dramatic, dynamic music which seemed to herald the Apocalypse. I don’t know how to describe how utterly involving and exciting it was. My camera – no camera – begins to do justice to that extraordinary marriage of lightshow and fireworks.

After 20 minutes, it stopped. Just like that. We held our collective breath, utterly silent, hundreds of us. And then we applauded, wildly, recognising the genius of what we’d just seen, and knowing that an encore simply wasn’t going to happen. Not this year.

It was, quite simply, one of the most exciting and compelling spectacles I’ve seen. Ever.

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‘Not all those who wander are lost.’* But we were….

On Sundays we walk, with our friends from Laroque. This time though, Malcolm and I were cramming in something else too: an afternoon birthday party right at the other end of the Ariège.

This was the plan. Walking Party A (which included me) set off at 8.00 a.m. to do a walk from Lieurac to Roquefort-les-Cascades, where we were to meet Party B (including Malcolm) for lunch. Party B consisted of the temporarily halt and lame, as well as Marcel, whose bread hadn’t finished baking by the time we left. ETA for us all, 11.30. At which point M & I would have made our excuses and left for the birthday party.

We did fine, we keenies in Walking Party A. We walked past Rapy, Ilhat, Tanière, glad of the frequently wooded and well-signposted paths, and all went well till Bac d’en Haut. There was a choice of routes which we discussed at length as we studied the map and made our choice, though we agreed it was an obvious one.

In due course it became clear that it was not obvious at all. Instead of climbing up about 250m, then descending, we went on up…. and up… and up. We’d been due to meet Party B at about 11.30, but midday came and went, 12.20, 12.30, 12.40… and then we came out of the woods to be confronted by a sight just behind us to the right. Roquefixade, a beauty spot really rather a long way from Roquefort-les Cascades. Even if you’re a crow. But if you use the paths, or even worse the roads, it’s absolute miles (19 km. actually. It involves doing the two longer sides of a triangle). We rang every member of group B who had a mobile. Nobody responded. We concluded there was ‘pas de reseau’ but wondered why at least one of them didn’t get into a reception area and ring us.

In the end, one of our group rang her husband, and he came to take some to Laroque to collect a rescue car, and others of us on to Roquefort. He didn’t drive a comfortable family saloon. Oh no. Our walking companion Corinne had that. He had the bright yellow van he uses for hunting. Behind the front seats was a compartment prickly with fresh straw where he and his fellow-hunters accommodate any wild boar they succeed in catching. I was one of the ones who … er …. drew the short straw and travelled in the wild boar compartment.

By the time we climbed aboard it was…. 1.40. By the time we reached Roquefort, it was well after 2.00. By the time the rescue car arrived with the remaining walkers, it was well after 2.30.

Meanwhile I rang our hostess and warned her we might not be able to get to the party. It didn’t take too long for ‘might not’ to become ‘can’t’. Hot, sweaty, and with no time to go home for a shower, I don’t think we’d have been entirely welcome.

So we stayed with our friends from Laroque. A picnic lunch, then home for that shower, before going round to the home of Michel and Annick, who have a pool.

A refreshing swim, an ‘auberge espagnole’ (pot luck supper) and a glass or two of wine soon helped us reframe our day of not-very-brilliant navigating skills into a yarn that will no doubt go down in the annals of the group. It was just a shame about that party.

*JRR Tolkein: ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’

Postcards from Girona 2

I knew I’d be writing at least one more post about Girona. In my mind I’d plotted a quick run through the city’s exciting history, or an art history essay about one or more of the churches perhaps. In the end though, you can get these things from any guide book, or by questioning the search engine of your choice. What I’d like you to do is to plan a visit if you don’t know the city already, or to suggest other places to explore here if you do.

We’ve enjoyed pounding the streets. Look up, or down as you’re walking, and you’ll find some gem worth your attention. We’ve enjoyed finding little bars and making them our own for an early breakfast or a mid-morning coffee stop. It’s astonishing how many Catalans seem to need a caffeine-rush before, during or after the daily grind. Nor is it simply tourists who hunt for restaurants with outside tables and just enough shade to keep cool and comfortable: for the Spanish, irritatingly, being outside means chain-smoking too.

Churches mean the chance to explore centuries of fascinating history. We passed almost an entire afternoon in Sant Feliu and then the Cathedral: and more or less accidentally discovered the outside of another- Sant Domènec, and the interior of one more – Santa Susanna.

We enjoyed our visit to the Arab Baths, the 12th century descendants of the Roman bath house, and antecedent of baths such as our own familiar Turkish baths in Harrogate.

Oooh, but it was tiring. How good it was to end each day relaxing over a meal, people watching in the evening warmth, before strolling back through Devesa park to our hotel, perchance to sleep.

A first view of Girona

Evening in the old town.

A meal in ….oh, I can’t remember. And we’d go there again.

Evening scene in Plaça Independència.

An unexpected find: Santa Susanna

These flags are everywhere, in English and Catalan.

The Arab Baths.

And just one more view of the Arab Baths.

Look up: that’s one way to get the shopping upstairs.

A view over the roof of the Romanesque church of Sant Pere de Galligants

The Cathedral, Sant Feliu, and the old city.

Look down: there’s always something at pavement level.

One house, miscellaneous windows…..

… and a front door.

Sant Feliu seen from Park de la Devesa

And the Cathedral, seen from the same place.

Inside Sant Feliu.

In Sant Feliu, take time to explore the wonderfully carved sarcophagi

An unexpected and opulent marble Baroque chapel in Sant Feliu…

… with the sun shining in.

In the Cathedral now. Shadows on the floor of the nave.

And here’s the nave: the widest Gothic nave in Europe.

Looking down on the Cathedral cloister.

Time out in a bar.

A quiet corner of a quiet street.

Climb dozens of steps, and you’re outside the battered church of Sant Domènec, looking at this frieze.

One of several slogans plastered round the city. They all have an apparently anti-tax theme

Tabariane: new light on the Dark Ages

As you explore the site at Tabariane, this fellow expains much of its history.

Meadow flowers on the walk

The burial ground

Graves

An information board reveals some of the artefacts found at the site

View from the burial ground

And another

A local craftsman, Lamande, has made the seating that adds to the site’s interest and charm.

Continue to climb from the burial site, and this is the view….

…. and this …..

….. and this.

When I was at school (back in the Dark Ages), we learnt in history that the Romans came after the Greeks. They left us a legacy of Romance languages, our alphabet, Roman law, neo-Classical architecture, impossibly straight roads and under floor central heating. As the empire crumbled, so we were told, the continent descended into the Dark Ages. Barbarians, Vandals, and unpleasantly savage descendants of Asterix the Gaul ravaged Europe, raping, pillaging and generally leaving little time for culture and a settled everyday life.

I think we all knew it was a bit less straightforward than that. The Frankish Germanic tribes entering the late Roman empire had a very different culture from that developed by the Romans, and it’s been much harder to research systematically because there are few contemporary written records.

This week though, we went to visit a Merovingian site, Tabariane, recently excavated and interpreted near Teilhet, not far from Mirepoix. The Merovingians were an early Frankish dynasty established by Clovis, and they ruled an area roughly equivalent to much of France and Germany from the 5^th to the 8^th centuries, and are the kind of tribe that was dismissed as one of those from the very heart of the Dark Ages

It was a burial site we’d come to see. It has first been discovered in the very early 20th century by Captain Henri Maurel, and had been partly excavated according to the fairly invasive practices of the period. War and economic upheaval meant the site became first neglected, and then entirely forgotten about until recently.

Recent research lead by Nicolas Portet has meant that the burial ground, now carefully excavated, is now, as it almost certainly was then, a burial garden. It’s a large site, on a hillside overlooking the site of the now disappeared Merovingian settlement on the opposite side of the valley. The 166 tombs seem to have been arranged in ‘clans’: loose arrangements of extended families and friends, over a long period of time. It seems to have been a burial ground which held a place in the life of the community for many years, rather than being a cemetery developed as a result of tragedy – war or plague say. Most of the bodies were laid with their heads to the west, their feet to the east. Originally they were clothed, but little remained apart from metal objects: belt buckles, brooches, jewellery and, with some of the men, weapons.

This is where ideas have changed. Early 20th century archaeologists sent excavated objects to museums far and wide, even to America: modern practice which encourages an area’s ’patrimoine’ (heritage) to remain as far as possible intact did not then exist, but you can find examples of objects found here in the Museum at Mazères, and in Saint Raymond de Toulouse.

Now as then, the tombs are planted with local flowering plants: lavenders, marguerites, herbs. It’s thought that locals would have visited the grounds with their families, spent time there, as we might in a modern park. So it was important to both the living and the dead to make it a pleasant, calm place to be. The burial ground overlooked the village. The village overlooked the burial ground. Each had an interest in the other. Each could intercede for the other.

It’s a tranquil, special place, surrounded by meadows and hilly countryside. A circular walk of some two and a half kilometres , starting and ending in the village of Teilhet gives you a chance to spend a peaceful hour or two exploring scenery that may not be so very different from the way it was when the Merovingian villagers first laid out their burial ground, some 800 years ago. Excellent information boards will help you understand a little more about those Merovingian people who made their lives in this still rural area.

While you’re there, make time to enjoy the facade of the 14th century church at Teilhet. Here are some pictures to whet your appetite.

The village and church of Teilhet seen from above.

Thanks to Wikimedia Commons for the use of this image of the vhurch facade

Stained glass window from “largest stained glass window-manufacturing firm in the world” of the 19th century Louis Gesta

This visit, guided by Marina Salby, formed part of the summer programme of Pays d’art et d’histoire des Pyrénées Cathares. It will be repeated on 31st July and 21st August. Meet outside the church at Teilhet at 9.30 a.m. Cost: 2 euros.

The comb

There’s an industry that’s had something of a walk-on part in this part of the Ariège for well over 300 years. Against all the odds, it’s somehow clinging on. It’s comb-making. Specifically, combs made from horn.

Today, we went to find out more, courtesy of a visit organised by ‘Pays d’art et d’histoire des Pyrénées Cathares’. There are two ‘peignes en corne’ factories within just a very few miles of each other, and of our house too. Each used to be the size of a hamlet, with separate buildings for all the different parts of the fabrication process. Now, both firms conduct operations each from a single building. We went to ‘Azema-Bigou’, in Campredon.

I’d always imagined the industry had developed as part of a waste-not-want-not mentality, using the horns from local sheep and cattle. Not at all.

Our part of France has always been rather anti-establishment, in religion as in much else. In the 16th and 17th centuries, when much of Europe was in religious turmoil, Protestants locally were persecuted. Many fled, some to Switzerland. And there they learnt a new skill, unknown to them before: comb making.

Following the 1598 Edict of Nantes, assuring greater religious freedom, many Protestants returned to their homes here, and wanted to continue the trade they’d learnt in exile. But did they use local materials? They did not. Local cattle worked hard , ploughing and generally earning their keep. They ended up with chipped, worn horns. Over the years, the comb-makers developed markets with ports such as le Havre, Marseilles, London and Liverpool, and imported good quality horn fom Hungary, Turkey, and by the 19th century, Argentina.

Horns awaiting transformation into combs

Although in the early days, the trade was conducted on a domestic scale, with each worker capable of producing 10-15 combs per day, perhaps after a day in the fields, by the 1850’s the process was industrialised – with machinery imported from England. Men women and children were all employed. Men earned 2 francs a day, women 1.25, and children 1….. . No wonder women in particular preferred to be paid for piece work: that way they too might get 2 francs daily. The busy industry grew and thrived until more or less the second world war when plastic combs started to take over. The factory of Azema-Bigou, in the hands of the same family for 5 generations, employs three people these days, though in its hey-day there were 180.

But these workers will tell you, as will many local people , that it’s well worth investing in a horn comb. Like your hair, the comb is rich in keratin, and will treat your hair gently without generating static electricity. Several of my friends have had the same comb since childhood and would never be happy to replace it with some cheap piece of plastic.

Apparently horn has to be soaked for up to a year before it becomes useable, and then it is forced through heavy rollers to make useable sheets. There are some 15 different processes involved in producing the finished comb. No wonder it costs rather more than its plastic poor relation.

I can’t tell you very much more. Unusually, this event was not up to snuff. We were shown no artefacts, heard no tales from former workers in the industry. So I don’t know what it felt like to work 11 hours a day in an atmosphere where horn dust hung heavy in the air cloaking lungs and coating every surface in thick grey cushions. I don’t really understand what’s involved in transforming a rough, thick horn into a polished and handsome comb. But I do know that the waste and dust swirling round the factory got – and gets – used. The tiny fragments of waste used to be made into filaments in a factory here in Laroque, mixed with horn dust and sold as a fertiliser for vines. Even now, you can buy bags of horn-waste fertiliser for your garden from the two comb factories. Waste-not-want-not gets its moment after all.

Postcards from Girona

View in a narrow city street.

Man hole cover – for the Fire Service.

A street in the old Jewish quarter.

A lizard? Or a door handle?

Streetscape.

The Jardins d’Alemanys near the city walls.

Aloe vera near the city walls.

The cathedral seen from the city walls.

Housing alongside the river Onya.

Lovers’ padlocks , or bike locks on a bridge over the Onyar?

Looking along the river towards the Cathedral.

This is cheating. It’s Barcelona. Where we went – can you imagine? – for a vegetarian Indian meal. Jolly good too.

We had a mid-week break in Girona last week. Because I needed the dentist.

Despite the general all-round good quality of the French health system (though it’s not what it was), dentistry does not on the whole measure up. Ask anybody round here to recommend a dentist, and they’ll either say ‘not mine, definitely not mine’, or suggest someone miles and miles away with a weeks long waiting list.

So when my daughter over in Barcelona recommended her dentist in nearby Girona, it seemed too good a chance to miss. A quick holiday in a town on the ‘to-visit’ list, a chance to see Emily, and a pain-free set of teeth.

The dentist there sorted things out, but said he’d need to see me again. So we realised we didn’t need to dash round on some frenzied must-see-everything-double-quick self-imposed tour. We took our time. We wandered up and down the narrow stairways that make up the ancient Jewish quarter, walked the old city walls, and spent time in the cool shaded Jardins d’Alemanys. There was time for an early morning coffee, a relaxed meal, a cool beer in shady squares among the narrow back streets.

In its day Girona has been invaded by Romans, Muslims, Franks, enduring over 30 sieges in 800 years. As Robin Gauldie, travel writer says: ‘It’s like Barcelona in miniature, with all the history, heritage and great food but without the insane traffic’. We don’t need the excuse of a toothache to go back. There are churches to visit, museums to explore, gardens to relax in, meals to enjoy. There are riverside walks, and the countryside beyond. So much to do and see, but all within walking distance of the ancient city centre. Roll on my next dental appointment.

To view any of the pictures in a larger format, simply click on the image.

Monks, marble, and a look-alike church

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Here in Laroque , we have a Commission du Patrimoine, attached to the town council. It has many enthusiastic and knowledgeable members who seek to preserve, restore and celebrate certain historic buildings, who manage the municipal archives, who research (for instance) the history of the area’s farms and who organise exhibitions. It has other members who are like me, frankly, free-loaders. We trot along to meetings but have little expertise to offer. But we were all in favour of the day out organised last Saturday.

We started off in Caunes-Minervois, a small town in the Aude. Most of us associate the Minervois with wine production, and we’re not wrong. I didn’t know though that near Caunes Minervois there are important marble quarries, worked since Roman times. It seems half the important buildings in Paris sourced their marble there … the Louvre, les Invalides, l’Opéra…. and then there are Fontainebleu and Versailles too. It rivals Carrara in importance and marble is quarried here still: many colours, but mainly a rather plummy pink.

We came though to visit the Benedictine Abbey. There’s been an abbey here since 790, and though the Carolingian buildings have long gone, the crypt, with early sarcophagi, remains beneath the present church. It’s a rotten site for a church in many ways, prone to an excess of water immediately below ground, so the four Christian martyrs whose relics are venerated here are targets for prayer that drought should not strike. Have devotees been praying just a little too fervently this year?

The Abbey has had a long and complex religious and political history which you can read about here. We started by visiting the 17th century cloisters, austere and simple, as befits a building used by the Benedictine order. Then there’s another vaulted room in the complex with an interesting feature. Stand in a corner and whisper your confession, and the sound will travel up to the roof, over and down the other side into the ear of the listening priest. He will be able to offer you absolution by whispering from his corner, in the knowledge that if you are carrying the plague, or some other contagious disease he’s at a safe distance from you. We all tried it. It works – the whispering that is.

The abbey became simply a parish church at the time of the French Revolution. From outside, it’s a fine Romanesque and early Gothic building, in a spacious uncluttered setting – the buildings that used to huddle up to it have been removed. Within, it’s a temple to the local marble, and to that of Carrara: there are even Italian statues owing something to the school of Michelangelo. Much of the former monastery is now used as space for art exhibitions.

Then it was off to lunch. Another treat. Not far from the village is another small church, Notre Dame du Cros. It’s in a splendid setting, in a gorge surrounded by craggy rocks. Stone tables and benches were there beneath the shady plane trees and we had one of those shared picnics the French do so well: home made apéritifs, home cured sausage, home made pies and cakes, home grown fruit, wine…..

The gorge.

The picnic.

Notre Dame du Cros

As a place of pilgrimage, you can walk the Stations of the Cross…..

…. and reach the top.

And then it was time for the look-alike church. Still in the Minervois, there’s another village, Puicheric. Its parish church bears a remarkable resemblance to ours here in Laroque. Hence our visit. Puicheric’s church, though, has a more intimate, homely feel. This turns out to be because during the 19th century, those responsible for the church at Laroque had delusions of grandeur, encouraged by the likes of Viollet-le-Duc who promoted Gothic architecture in buildings where such features had never previously existed. The roof height was raised, at vast expense, to create a more ‘Gothic’ feel to the building.

Nevertheless, Notre-Dame de Puicheric has a claim to fame as a place of pilgrimage. Back in 1700 a marble staue of the Madonna was being shipped from Italy along the Canal du Midi, past Puicheric, bound for some fine church in Aquitaine. Once in Puicheric, the barge could go no further, detained by some irresistible force. The statue was taken to the church, and there it remains to this day, an object of veneration.

And then there’s the château. Laroque had a castle once too, and we still have the odd remaining bit of wall. Simon de Montfort saw that off, as so many other things round here. Puicheric’s still looks very imposing – from round the back. From the other side, what you get is a rather splendid chambres d’hôtes. It had an aristocratic past, though much of the original site was destroyed by our very own Black Prince in 1355. It housed the nobility until the French Revolution and then passed into the hands of a family with whom it remained until 1990. Now it’s the home and business of Dominica and Phillippe Gouze, who aim to offer modern hospitality whilst retaining all those elements from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries and long before that which inform its character. We were seduced by the garden, the views, the ancient tower with a faded fresco of someone doing something dreadful to a dragon, and by the story-telling powers of our host.

The church at Puicheric. We’ll have a trip round the one at laroque another day. Meanwhile, there’s a view of the exterior on the masthead of my blog.

The high altar at Puicheric. Note the absidal windows, all slightly off-set.

As in Laroque, there are remnants of ancient frescoes.

Those absidal windows again.

The Madonna who refused to leave.

And that’s how thick the church walls are.

Up in the bell tower, a now disused clockwork mechanism.

As you leave the church, this is the first view of the château.

And this is a view from the garden.

The church viewd from the garden.

Look carefully, and you’ll see a dragon slayer. You might even see the dragon.

One face of the courtyard.

A courtyard cherub.

Another face of the courtyard.

The dragon-slayer’s tower, viewed from outside the château walls.

While we were there, we could have seen so much more, as clicking through the links would reveal. But that will have to be for another day …. or two ….. or three.

To view any of the pictures in a larger format, simply click on the image.