Tag: Occitaine

We spent the morning on the beach with the dogs and then, while Vanya chose to chill by one of Le Brasilia’s many swimming pools, I elected to go for a hike around the Tet Estuary to a gem of a town called Sainte-Marie La Mere (not to be confused with Saintes Maries de la Mer in the Camargue) .

Saint-Marie is similar to Canet en Roussillon in that it is has two very distinct parts, the old town and the beach except they are divided by a road in Sainte-Marie La Mere while in Canet en Roussillon they are a good mile or two apart . I wasn’t interested in seeing the beach on this occasion. I simply wanted to see the old town – the heart of Saint-Marie La Mere.

A pleasant two mile walk in the sunshine by the side of the River Tet and then through fields of artichokes (did you know that artichokes are a species of thistle?) took me to the Rue de Canet and then on to the centre-ville by way of Avenue Arago.

Sainte-Marie La Mere is a small town (it has less than 5,000 inhabitants) and a half day is sufficient to see most everything. Moreover, I had downloaded a useful brochure (a leaflet really) produced by the local tourist office which both helped me find my way around and ensured I didn’t miss anything of note – see www.saintmarielamer-tourisme.com

I actually downloaded three items from the website – the ‘leaflet’ I’ve already mentioned; a three page brochure identifying when and where all the local farmer’s markets are held (that was for Vanya) and; finally a lengthier brochure produced by the Perpignan tourist office entitled ‘Randos & Balades’ (Hikes & Walks); which gives brief details of 38 circular routes of varying lengths and difficulties in the area. Not all of these are available in English but, trust me, you don’t have to be fluent in French to follow them.

Amongst other things, the Sainte-Marie La Mere leaflet made reference to various “trompe l’oeil” which are dotted around the town. These are life size murals which look real from a distance. Most of those in the town were painted by a self-taught local artist, Bernard Gout, and they can be found in numerous towns and villages in the area. I really like his work and, to be honest, it was fun seeking them out.

I worked up quite a thirst during my search for the trompe l’oeil and made time for a long cool beer in a friendly bar on Rue de la Paix before making my way back to Le Brasilia.

We would stay one more day in France (and do nothing but enjoy Le Brasilia’s abundant facilities) and then make our way into Spain. The weather forecast in Catalonia and Spain in general is good for the forseeable future and I read somewhere that the restriction on taking a motorhome into the beautiful village of Cadaques has been lifted. Both Cadaques and the nearby Parc Natural de Cap de Creus have long been on my wish list of places to visit. At last!

We had booked into Le Brasilia for 4 nights (which eventually turned into 5) knowing that it is a good spot with plenty of interesting places to visit in the surrounding area. The day after our visit to Le Barcares, we drove south to the slightly larger town of Elne, reputed to be the oldest town in the area. Elne was where Hannibal, after crossing the Pyrenees in 218 BC, paused to negotiate a peaceful crossing of Gaul on his way to attack Rome. From it’s position on the Tech River, a few miles inland from the Mediterranean Sea, it grew to become one of the most prominent cities in the area and remained so until slowly eclipsed by Perpignan in the late Middle Ages. Now it is a quiet predominantly agricultural town of less than 10,000 people.

The town’s most interesting features are the Cathedral of Sainte Eulalie et Sainte Julie and the Episcopal Palace (the catholic bishopric was established in the 6th century and wasn’t transferred to Perpignan until 1601) and for those not interested in ecclesiastical buildings (Vanya) there is a butterfly farm (Le Tropique du Papillon) which we didn’t get to enjoy because we had our dogs with us. I imagine that the last thing anyone wants to see, least of all Vanya, is Beanie tearing around the Mediterranean Garden, hounding rare butterflies to death.

No, I made do with a short tour of the cathedral and it’s cloisters and then we wandered the town admiring the artwork of the sculptor Aristide Maillol (whom I wrote about when we visited Banyuls sur Mer), a painter called Etienne Terrus (whom I had never heard of but who became a highly regarded impressionist painter and was a close friend of Henri Matisse) and a number of contemporary artists who, no doubt influenced by Terrus, have made Elne their home (for the time being at least).

The cathedral dominates the town and is impressive. Parts of the current building date back to 1069 but most of the Cathedral was destroyed (and the town’s population massacred) in 1285 when a French army invaded Catalan as part of the Aragonese Crusade.It was rebuilt in the 14th century.

One of the statues in Elne which is easily identified as a Malliol creation is the war memorial honouring the town’s fallen in the two world wars, and France’s wars in Indochina and Algeria. The model for the statue was Dina Vierny (the muse, model, avid art collector and member of the French resistance during WW2 whom I wrote about in my blog on Banyuls sur Mer). She was the model too for his Pomone which is in the Tuileries in Paris. She wisely kept her clothes on for Elne’s war memorial.

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A great many of the works of Etienne Terrus are to be found in Elne’s Terrus Museum & Art Gallery although the numbers were reduced quite considerably between September 2017 and April 2018. In September 2017, a guest curator became suspicious about some of the exhibits on display in the museum and reported the matter, suggesting they were fakes. 82 of the 142 works on display were later found to be fakes. The 60 works now on display in the gallery were authenticated and ‘Elne, les ramparts sud’ is amongst them.

There are plenty of other works on display in the streets around the town and I took a few photographs but…

… Sometimes it is the streets themselves that produce the real beauty:-

We’re staying on in Le Brasilia for at least another two days and so tomorrow I will visit Sainte Marie-Marie La Mere…

We took a day out from Le Brasilia to visit the small town of Le Barcares just 8 miles north of Canet en Roussillon. It was market day in Le Barcares and that is as good a reason as any to visit somewhere in France. We’d have a good wander around the market and then take brunch by the sea.

Le Barcares has the unenviable reputation of being amongst the first of the towns and villages along this stretch of the coast to fully embrace tourism at the expense of it’s fishing interests. Some investors moved in during the 1960’s with ideas to develop a leisure complex to the north of the town. They planted an old cruise liner (the Lydia) on the beach near the port (which they later fitted out as a nightclub, restaurant and casino) and built a promenade connecting the Lydia to Port Le Bacares (which became known as the Allee des Arts after the investors arranged for various artists to create an open air museum of contemporary art along it’s length). It was an ambitious, cutting edge project but it was well received and for many years was successful. Over time, however, interest waned; successive owners failed to maintain the liner and; by the 1980’s Lydia had fallen into disuse. The ship and the promenade lay derelict until 2011 when the local council bought it for a million Euros with a view to revitalising the complex by turning it into a cultural attraction.

The liner has since been refurbished. A small museum and art gallery has been installed and part of the ship is set aside for exhibitions and events. The exhibits along the promenade, which originally comprised a series of monumental sculptures (such as the Soleilonautes – see below), have been added to by a street art collection fashioned out of and/or on old shipping containers. In addition, some nearby land owned by the council was reserved for the creation of a new initiative, the Traditional Fishermen’s Village. This consists of a small collection of fishing boats and thatched wooden cottages and serves as a tribute to the people who first settled this area. I like that idea.

The Le Barcares Council are to be commended for trying to make the best of a truly awful situation but, with the exception of the Fishermen’s Village, I’m not sure their plans will work. I hope I’m wrong but the realities are that (a) the ship is very much under utilised and will be prohibitively expensive to maintain (especially with recent Trip Advisor reviews proving very negative) and (b) the sculptures and street art collection are, to my mind, unimpressive and already looking tired. I think too that these exhibits, especially the more abstract ones like the Soleilonautes (8 wooden totem poles arranged in a circle), would benefit from an explanatory plaque. I like to know what I am looking at and what was in the artist’s mind at the time. Fingers crossed that it all comes good because the council are at least trying.

Moving on. We parked the Van on a large motorhome aire near old port (now a marina) – thanks again to the council for such a facility – and walked into town along Rue Magellan. The view across the marina entrance towards the Pyrenees was beautiful. Pic de Canigou, once thought to be the tallest mountain in the Pyrenees at 2,748 metres (it’s not even close; that honour goes to Aneto at 3,404 metres), looked fantastic with it’s tops covered in snow.We were so impressed with that view that we almost missed out on the Farmer’s Village.

The farmer’s market in Le Barcares is not the biggest market we have seen in France and it certainly didn’t have the variety of Bar sur Seine in Grand Est but it was a fair size and a real joy to wander. Vanya particularly liked it, buying a new top and a grape vine. Yes, a grape vine. I very much liked some oil paintings on sheets of tin of all things but resisted the urge to buy. I was going to have my hands full walking back to the Van with Nala and a 20 year old Muscat grape vine.

I’ll let the pictures do the talking…

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… but that Muscat vine on the table!?!

This was my second visit to Fanjeaux and Vanya’s first although she didn’t get to see much of this pretty little town. We were in Fanjeaux (just outside at Les Brugues to be precise, parked up on a farm) to catch up with some longstanding friends, Chris & Tessa.

I cooked my Spanish Chicken in the Remoska and we sat by a small carp lake in the warm sunshine eating, drinking and chatting for the best part of 3 hours. We’re five weeks into this tour now and I’m really starting to chill. Sad that we have to head back to the UK.

There was a small art exhibition on the campsite and I reproduce below a couple of photos of exhibits around the lake. Below those are two photos from my previous trip to Fanjeaux (during Tour 2) when the weather was altogether nicer and the sunflowers were in full bloom. No matter we really enjoyed catching up with Chris and Tessa. ‘Til the next time!

The plan now is to make our way north to the English Channel but there’s no rush (France has this effect on me). We’ll overnight at Saint Jory de Chalais and take a look at the pretty market town of Excideuil on the way.

We have crossed the magnificent Millau Viaduct, designed by our very own Norman Foster, on a couple of occasions but not once stopped to visit the historical town of Millau. That had to change and, while heading north on the A75 Autoroute in readiness for our return to the UK, we dropped down into the Tarn Valley. We chose to stay at the Camping 2 Rivieres on Avenue de L’Aigoual, just over the River Tarn from Millau old town.

Situated at the confluence of the Rivers Tarn and Doubie, Millau’s historical centre is a ‘must see’ destination in it’s own right and the starting point for numerous interesting outings across the Aveyron Department of Occitaine. We were staying just 24 hours and didn’t therefore have the time to explore anything other than Millau and, after parking the Van, I set off to explore the old town with a view to showing Vanya it’s highlights later in the day.

I really like Millau’s old town. It’s a warren of crooked cobbled lanes and tiny courtyards. Many of the lanes are arched and lead to sleepy little squares tucked away all over the town. They are gorgeous.

Except for when I crossed the Tarn to look at the the Millau Plage, using what looked like pedestrian pontoon bridge near the Pont du Larzac, I kept to the old town. Sadly, this meant missing out on a couple of Millau’s more interesting tourist sights, notably the Roquefort Caves and the Museum and Roman archaeological site of La Graufesenque (all that is left of a whole town of potters whose huge kilns were capable of producing 40,000 high quality pots per batch and whose wares have been discovered as far away as India). No matter, we’ll be returning and meanwhile I saw enough in the old town to keep me content.

I started by heading for one of the town’s highest points, the Belfry or ‘Beffroi de Millau’, not least because it is adjacent to the local tourist office and I figured they were best qualified to help me maximise my short time in the town. The tourist office informed me that visitors could ascend the tower except it was currently closed for renovation. They provided some background information on the town, starting with the Belfry (which is all that remains of a 12th century palace built by the Kings of Aragon) and then directed me towards some of the town’s more impressive monuments; churches mostly and various other historical points of interest. I’ll leave the photos to do the talking…

I visited a number of the larger churches but would comment on just two. The first of these was the Eglise du Sacre Coeur. Built in a Neo-Roman Byzantine style in the late 19th century and having two bell towers, it’s outside is more impressive than the inside. It’s one of the newer churches in Millau.

The Eglise Notre Dame de l’Espinasse is definitely the most interesting of all the churches I saw in Millau. It has history and some wonderful frescoes inside. The existing church was built in the 17th century although there has been an Eglise Notre Dame de L’Espinasse on this site (now the Place Marechal Foch) since the 11th century. The original church and contents (including a thorn supposedly taken from the crown worn by Jesus at his crucifixion and from which the church got it’s name) were completely destroyed during the Wars of Religion in the second half of the 16th century.

In contrast to the Millau Sacre Coeur, it is the inside of the Eglise Notre Dame which is the more impressive, not least because of Jean Bernard’s paintings which cover the apse ceiling.

Other historical points of interest in the town include the Lavoir de L’Ayrolle (a washhouse built during the 1740’s on the orders of Louis XV); the Fontaine du Moyen Age (known now as the Fontaine Basse, this has been a source of clear water for the town since at least the 14th century) and; Les Halles Millau (built near the Sacre Coeur church in the 19th century, during La Belle Epoque, this bustling covered food market is open every day except Mondays).

It is perhaps appropriate to mention here that there is a Farmers Market in the Old Town every Wednesday and at weekends in the area of the Eglise Notre Dame. Regional delicacies in the Aveyrone that are always available in the market include the local Roquefort blue cheese (aged in the nearby limestone caves), aligot (a creamy mixture of mashed potato and cheese), fouace (a sweet bread often enjoyed at breakfast) and echaude (an aniseed flavoured biscuit).

One last historical point of interest in Millau is it’s old grain mill (Moulin Vieux) on the town’s old bridge (Pont Vieux). There’s been a working mill on the Vieux Pont since the 12th century, even after most of the bridge was washed away by floods. The mill finally ceased working when the owners were declared bankrupt in 1937. I’m not sure what purpose the building serves now. I was unable to gain entry.

After dinner and a further wander around the old town with Vanya and the dogs we simply sat outside the Cafe Tout Va Bien on Boulevard de Bonald and watched the world go by over a couple of drinks. It was as chill a moment as you can get.

We’ll have to return for a few days when next in France. There’s plenty more to experience in Millau and the surrounding area. I’m thinking in particular of the two of Aveyron’s ten ‘plus beaux villages de France’ which are close by (Montpellier le Vieux and Peyre) and I missed out this time on Roquefort sur Soulzon (for it’s cheese). There’s also the Maison des Vautours Visitor Centre (to observe local vultures) and the Via Ferrata du Boffi (a rather interesting looking cliff-side walkway). Most important are some of the other local foodstuffs which I have yet to sample. I’m thinking of Veyreau Honey, Paulhe Cherries and Truffles at the Maison de la Truffe in Compregnac.