Local Attractions

St Lizier

Between Bardies and St Girons, there is a right turn on the D625 that takes you through the charming bastide village of Montjoie-en-Couserans. Just a few kilometres along the road you will come to the spectacular heritage site of St Lizier, the Gallo-Roman town of Lugdunum Consoranorum. It is perched picturesquely above the river Salat below. Although partly ruined by a major fire in the seventeenth century, four of its monuments are of world-class heritage. The cathedral of St Lizier, dating from the 11th – 14th C, has Romanesque frescoes, a valuable treasury and one of the most beautiful and tranquil cloisters I have ever seen. Nearby, the Hotel-Dieu houses an 18th C pharmacy.

Located in the upper part of the village, bound by the ancient gallo-roman wall, is the second cathedral, Notre Dame-de-la-Sede, currently under restoration, as well as the 17th C old Bishop’s Palace, now a fantastic museum of local Ariegeois culture.

At the beginning of August each year St Lizier hosts a two- week festival of classical concerts in the cathedral, for which early booking is recommended.

St Girons

As you drive down the steep hill from St Lizier and over the bridge across the rapids on the river Salat, the bustling market town of St Girons is four kilometres east along the D119 towards Foix. After the glory and magnificence of St Lizier, the reddish-pink marble pavements and grey painted shutters of St Girons may seem rather dull in comparison. Its geography and location, nestling sleepily in the valley below its more illustrious predecessor, is however its greatest asset. The view up to the mountains from the Pont-Vieux over the fast flowing Salat in the centre of town is worth the trip alone.

Here the power of nature reigns supreme and its tiny cathedral is testament to its more secular status. It is a trading town, with a huge and exceedingly jolly market every Saturday morning. Each weekend hordes of ‘hippies’ descend from the surrounding hills to display and sell the products and produce of their many talents. The café of the faded Hotel de l’Union is the place to be seen and, if you need something to read over your café creme, the fabulously decadent ‘bouquinerie’ next door is a must. There are some wonderfully old-fashioned shops nearby to browse in, their shop fronts and fittings unchanged for generations.

The town hosts a number of festivals each year, including a ‘Festival de Theatre’. The annual folklore festival usually held in early August, with its magnificent procession of ancient agricultural machinery, is a must if you are in the area. Some years a stage of the Tour de France takes place nearby, 2007 being the next scheduled appearance of the cycling circus. The whole town seems to pour out into the sunshine from behind their shuttered and cool interiors to cheer on their favourites in this most popular of national sporting pastimes.

Foix

The imposing Chateau de Foix, built in the 10th century, was designed to take one’s breath away when approached from the main road from St Girons and the ancient principalities of Aragon and Bearn. Its three crenellated towers impose its might on the town far below, squeezed uncomfortably into the junction of the Arget and Ariege rivers. Those of you familiar with Kate Mosse’s splendid book about the Cathars in Carcassonne, ‘Labyrinth’, will know much of the role of Raimon-Roger, Comte de Foix [1188-1223], in the Cathar Crusade. He was a staunch ally of his close relative, Raymond V1, Count of Toulouse, and whilst we do not know if he was a believer himself, we do know that his wife, Philippa of Foix, and his sister, Esclarmonde, became ‘parfaits’.

His castle was besieged four times and in 1214 it was surrendered to the papal legate, who allowed Simon de Montfort to temporarily occupy it. He regained it in 1218 after de Montfort was killed attacking Toulouse. It proved to be an effective Cathar stronghold until the final act of the drama in 1271, when the Count of Foix yet again refused to acknowledge the sovereignty of the king of France. It came perilously close to destruction, when the Philip the Bold’s garrison proceeded to hack away at the rock on which it stood. Finally the Count was forced to surrender and to accede to the mighty will of France.

The last Count to inhabit the Chateau was Gaston Febus [1331-1391 and by the 16C it had lost its function as a military stronghold. Under Henry 1V it was turned into a prison until 1864.

Of the three remaining towers, the freestanding round tower now houses the Musee de l’Ariege. There are 14th and 15th century vaulted rooms in two of the towers and from the top there are splendid views of the Ariege valley and the ‘Pain de Sucre’ in Montgaillard. Other sites include the former monastic church of St Volusien [12th and 15th C], which has a beautiful choir, 15th century choir stalls and an unfinished square tower. Nearby there are a number of interesting old half-timbered houses and the curious ‘Goose Fountain’.

There are many Romanesque churches of the 11th and 12th centuries worth visiting in the surrounding villages, including Benac, Loubens, Mercus, St Jean de Verges [my favourite], Serres sur Arget and Vernajoul.

On the way back from Loubens, it is well worth taking a detour via the Grotte de Mas d’Azil. Near to the village of Mas d’Azil, the river takes a shortcut through the hillside, forming a cave so massive that the main road now passes through it. Guided tours [and a ‘son et lumiere!] take place at regular intervals where you can see signs of life going back tens of thousands of years, including the famous ‘Faon aux Oiseaux’ spear thrower. Indeed, the finds from this grotto gave the name ‘Azilian’ to an entire prehistoric culture.

Further Afield

Mirepoix

Well worth a visit for lunch, an hour from Foix on the route to Carcassonne, is the small medieval bastide town of Mirepoix. If one ignores the hordes of tourists, very little has changed since the Middle Ages. Guy de Levis, the henchman of Simon de Montfort, was made Marechal of Mirepoix in 1209 after the chateau owners were dispossessed as a result of their sympathies with Catharism. The town was constructed in 1289 in the form of a bastide, after the earlier town was destroyed by flooding. In 1362 a great fire was started by brigands, who destroyed the southern part of the town.  A strong encircling wall and four large gates were built to protect it, although today only the Porte d’Aval remains.

Around the large central square are a number of half timbered houses supported on wood pillars. These splendid ‘couverts’ are sculpted at the ends of the joists on the finest houses. Look out for the gargoyles, bearded heads and a tortoise on the house of the Justice du Seigneur, now the ‘maison des Consuls’ hotel.

The cathedral of St Maurice has metamorphosed over time from the little church built in 1298 by Jean de Levis and his wife, Constance de Foix, into a vast cathedral with the second largest nave in Europe [after Gerona in Spain]. Inside, there is a beautiful tabernacle and seven paintings by Lariviere-Vesontius, as well as an exquisite fourteenth century cross.

Not far from Mirepoix, a detour to the majestic ruins of the Chateau de Lagarde, built in the fourteenth century by the heirs of Guy de Levis, the village of Camon, which was constructed around a Benedictine abbey founded by Charlemagne in 778, and the little Romanesque church of Vals will prove worth the effort.

Fanjeaux, on the route to Carcassonne, is a great place to stop for a cool drink and soak up the atmosphere of the ‘Route des Cathares’, particularly when the rape plants or sunflowers are in full bloom. St Dominic’s abbey, founded in the thirteenth century as a bulwark against heresy, sits shadily below the town.

Carcassonne

Traces of human habitation date the city to the 6th Century BC, although its fame derives from the fortified medieval town and its Disney-like restoration by Viollet le Duc in the 19th century. Under the Roman occupation of Provence and the Languedoc, it was known as Carcaso. The Visigoths controlled the city between 460 and 725 AD, when the Saracens invaded. The Kingdom of the Franks then dominated until the death of Charlemagne, when the feudal system emerged under the dynasty of the Trencavels [1082 -1209] and the fortress Cite was built. During this period there was a great flowering of Occitan culture throughout the Languedoc and Carcassonne became extremely influential.

The Chateau de Comtal, on the western face, was built in the 12th century and the construction of the outer wall and the inner rampart during the 13th. The imposing huge spike- shaped towers of the Narbonnaise Gate also date from the 12th century. The wall at the bottom of the escarpment of the Cite, preventing the enemy from entering from the banks of the river Aude below, dates from the 13th century, as does the Aude Gate. The stone bridge dates to the early 14th century, when it was built to link the Cite with the new town. The Basilica of St Nazarius, where Simon de Montfort lies buried, was completed in the first half of the 12th century. 

Those who have read Kate Mosse’s ‘Labyrinth’ will know that the charismatic Raymond-Roger Trencavel [1184 -1209], who lived in the Chateau de Comtal, was a Cathar sympathiser. He paid for this support with his short life for, after the two-week siege of Carcassonne which ended on 15th August 1209, he surrendered the city to save the lives of its inhabitants only to be thrown into prison and left to die. The Cite and the lands of Trencavel were first given to Simon de Montfort, as a reward for his loyalty and military prowess, and then ceded to the King of France.

A new town outside the city walls, La Bastide de Saint-Louis, was constructed on its left bank in 1262. As its fortunes rose as the centre of the wine trade and a cloth making industry, the old fortress Cite fell into decline, particularly after it lost its strategic importance after the signing of the Franco/ Spanish Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659.  It was only saved from demolition in the nineteenth century by the joint efforts of Jean-Pierre Cros-Mayrevielle, a local historian, and Viollet le Duc, the famous architect. It was made a UNESCO world heritage site in 1997.

From Carcassonne, it is worth a detour to Montolieu, ‘the book village’, in the Montagne Noir. In the opposite direction, Montreal is worth stopping for a drink in. The charming towns of Revel [which has the best Saturday morning market] and St Felix Lauragais, with its X11th century chateau where the Conseil des Cathares met in 1167, are not too far off the beaten track on the way back to Toulouse. It is well worth booking lunch at the Michelin starred restaurant in St Felix, ‘Les Poids Public’. Tel: 33 [0]5 62 18 85 00.

City of Toulouse

The ‘rose city’ of Toulouse, called ‘Tolosa’ in Occitan, is the unofficial capital today of Occitan culture and history. Indeed, the traditional Occitan cross has been officially adopted as the emblem for both the city and the newly founded region of Midi-Pyrenees. It is France’s fourth largest city, after Paris, Marseilles and Lyons, and has today has a population of 1.1 million.

The site, located at a ford on the banks of the River Garonne equidistant between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, was settled before the Romans conquered the region. When the Romans came they expanded this early settlement to become the third largest city in Gaul and the intellectual centre of the Narbonne region. In the fifth century it was the capital of the Visigoths and from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries it was the renowned seat of one of the most beautiful and refined courts in Europe. It flourished as the capital of the Langue d’ Oc, whose language, literature, poetry and music spread far and wide through the influence of the peripatetic troubadors.

The Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars [1209 -1229] in the thirteenth century served as a pretext for the erosion of the Languedoc’s independence. It finally surrendered to the will of the French crown, after a long and bitter fight, in 1271. Its university was chillingly founded by the Inquisition to propagate ‘orthodoxy’, in the wake of the failure of the crusade to recapture the hearts and minds of the rebellious Tolosaines.

The city was run by an assembly of elected ‘capitouls’, and a parliament was inaugurated in 1444 to oversee judicial and financial affairs. The rivalry between the two lasted until the two assemblies were dissolved in the wake of the revolution. Toulouse’s past glories and fierce independence gradually evaporated as it declined into a provincial backwater during the nineteenth century.

Its fortunes have been significantly reversed during the twentieth century, when its unindustrialised infrastructure have made it the perfect location for the relocation of many of France’s developing industries and the decentralisation of many government departments. It is now the centre of the aerospace industry as well as Airbus, the aeroplane manufacturer. It is now a vibrant, trendy, modern city with a vibrant outdoor culture of bustling markets and pavement cafes and restaurants as well as being a repository of its ancient Occitan culture.

Musts to visit are the Basilica of Saint Sernin [built during the Romanesque period between 1080 and 1120 and the largest of its type in western Europe] and restored by Viollet-le-Duc [the restorer of the medieval city of Carcassonne] in 1860, the cathedral of St Etienne, Notre-Dame de Taur church, the church and cloisters of the Jacobin Monastery, which form the most complete group of monastic structures in France, the ‘Capitole’ and its recently restored ‘place’, with its stunning façade of brick and stone, the City hall and theatre which forms part of the ‘Capitole’ and, on the eastern edge of the city, the ‘Cite de l’espace.’ And for those of you passionate about rugby, there is always the possibility of catching a match at the Stade de Toulouse.

The Canal du Midi

A trip along part of the Canal du Midi, now a UNESCO world heritage site, is one of the great leisurely pursuits of our region. Those of you familiar with Rick Stein’s ‘French Odyssey’ will not need me to persuade you! Built under the supervision of Pierre-Paul Riquet, the 240 km long canal was intended as a shortcut between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. His 12,000 workers toiled for fifteen years to create the canal, which runs from Toulouse to Sete [famous, amongst other things, for its delicious ‘bourride’]. It was officially opened on May 24th 1681 at a time when Spain was a hostile power and Barbary pirates dominated the sea routes into the Mediterranean.

As well as being stunningly beautiful and a photographer’s dream, the canal is an incredible feat of engineering even by current day standards. It has 103 locks, which serve to climb and descend a total of 190 meters, 328 structures, including the first canal passage ever built through a tunnel, the Malpas tunnel, where it passes through a passage 173 metres long under a hill at Enserune and the first artificial reservoir for feeding a canal waterway. Amazingly, the massive dam which forms its structure, 700 metres long, 30 metres above the riverbed and 120 meters thick at its base was built by the labour of hundreds of local women carrying soil in baskets.

‘Peniches’ [canal barges], which are not cheap, can be hired for touring but it is very easy to take one’s bicycles along and cycle to one’s heart’s content along the towpaths. My favourite spot is from Castelnaudary to the east of Toulouse [about half an hour from Toulouse, one and a half hours from Bardies].

St Bertrand de Comminges

The ancient Roman city of Lugdunum Convenarum, where Pompeii ruled over 100,000 inhabitants, is between St Girons and Tarbes. If you join the motorway at St Martory [well worth a look in itself], it is signposted just past the town of Saint Gaudens. Its setting, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, is exquisite and many of the old Roman remains can still be seen. Roman artefacts from the site can are well worth seeing in the ‘Musee des Olivetains’ near to the cathedral.

Nowadays, though, it is the spectacular cathedral of St Mary, built in the 12th century, which is the highlight of a visit to the medieval village of St Bertrand de Comminges. The white veined façade and the heavily buttressed nave of the basilca now totally dominate the fifteenth and sixteenth century houses below. It is an awe-inspiring site. During the Second World War the local ‘maquis’ [resistance unit] were based in the hills around.

Through the west door, there is a Romanesque cloister with exquisite carved capitals. Inside the basilica, which has no aisles, there is a superbly carved sixteenth century oak organ, pulpit and spiral stair at the west end. The magnificent central choir was built by ‘tolousain’ craftsmen and installed in 1535. Each of the 66 elaborately carved stalls is the work of a different craftsman and in each one it is possible to get a sense of the humour and ingenuity of their creator. Each of the gangways separating the misericords and partitions has a representation of a cardinal sin on top of the end partition. Their detail is the carved equivalent of our modern day cartoonists.

There are some attractive restaurants in the village below, in which to have a coffee or lunch, and attractive walks all around. I thoroughly recommend going to the medieval church in St Just in Valcabrere, a couple of kilometres down the road, where peace and spiritual tranquillity reign. For me, like the little church carved out of rock in Vals, near Mirepoix, St Just is a place to replenish the soul. The all- powerful majesty of St Bertrand speaks of the might of the Almighty, whilst the little church of St Just speaks of the humility of the faithful. They are both well worth the drive.

Lourdes

Only an hour or so’s drive west on the motorway from St Bertrand is the Pyreneen town of Tarbes and the village of Lourdes nearby. My mother brought my father to Lourdes in 1958, when he was dying of cancer. Her faith in its healing powers, like millions of other catholics around the world, was unassailable. In only 140 years the powerful restorative energy of the grotto has made the site the most visited shrine of pilgrimage in the whole of Christendom.

Between February 11th and July 16th 1858, Bernadette Soubirous, a fourteen- year old peasant girl, saw eighteen apparitions of a white robed lady in the small grotto of Massabiele on the banks of the river Gave de Pau. On march 25th, having requested Bernadette to “go tell the priest to build a chapel here”, the lady revealed herself as Mary, the mother of Jesus. Bernadette dug furiously in the earth until a small pool of water began to appear and formed the sacred spring that was to make Lourdes famous.

As more and more incidents of healing began to be reported, Bernadette’s claims to have seen ‘Our Lady of Lourdes’ were accepted and in 1876 a basilica was built above the grotto. In 1958, an immense concrete church with a capacity of 20,000 was built to house the 4-6 million pilgrims who visit the site each year.

Even if one is a total cynic, the power and energy surrounding the grotto and early basilica is overwhelming. As a very good friend of ours, Louis-Charles de Roquette, who used to work there voluntarily each year for one week, says: “If you go to Lourdes and witness the misery of other people and their faith, you will always go home thankful for what you have.”