Bordeaux and Palmiers

Peyrepertuse is the third and last of the Cathar châteaux that we visited this year. Contrary to the other two, Peyrepertuse was new for all of us.

Anne-Marie, the director of the program, had decided last year that the climb was too difficult for the children, but this year, when we heard about the daily falconry show at the top, we decided to take six of the older kids up to the top.

Alex accidentally drove us all the way to Queribus before noticing we were at the wrong château, so by the time we made it all the way to the top of the right château, the show was almost over: we barely caught the last falcon plunging back down to the château to land on the arm of its trainer. The view from the top, however, was still quite impressive and was well worth the climb.

Peyrepertuse is even better preserved than Queribus, and because it was not only a military base but a true castle housing entire families,  the expanse of rooms and areas to visit is much more diverse.

Amongst the features of the château are the chapel, the San Jordi dungeon and the Saint Louis staircase. The staircase is part of what had been deemed too dangerous to walk. The steps have been used so much over the years that, much like the foot of St. Peter at the Vatican, they have worn down to a glossy sheen. You have to hold the rope that serves as a banister to go up or down, and I can’t even imagine what it would be like to attempt to use them on a day when the infamous Tramontagne was blowing.

The name Peyrepertuse comes from the Occitan meaning “pierced rock.” It used to be an important strategic fortress, standing at 800 meters and surveying the border between France and Spain until the border was moved.

Even if you don’t know much about the history of the château, which we didn’t at the time of our visit, it is still a beautiful walk and an amazing historical site to visit.

Of the three châteaux Cathares near us here in the Southwest (three of the five “sons of Carcassonne” that protected the border between the regions of Aude and the Pyrénées-Orientales), we had only visited two last year: Aguilar and Queribus. The third, Peyrepertus, at first deemed too dangerous, was a new addition this year, and will be coming soon to a blog near you.

This year, the kids went to Queribus in the “Scooby Van,” but because there were 23 of us this year to fit into two vans, I didn’t get to go. Lucky for you, I have some pictures from last year, when this year’s counselors were just campers, and Luc had really long hair.

Queribus remained strong after the fall of the other five châteaux in the 13th century and housed the militia and Cathars (”heretics” to the Inquisition) that had fled from the other four in 1244 before they moved on to regions more friendly to their religion such as Piedmont. Queribus was much higher than the other châteaux at 728 m, and it was also quite isolated. As such, it remains in much better condition than many of the other châteaux in the area.

Eventually, however, Queribus fell into ruins as well, and until 2002, the castle was not accessible to tourists. Now, however, after four years of intense work and reconstruction, the climb is quite safe (by European standards), and it is possible to see much more of the former castle than it was of Aguilar.

Even though I didn’t get to go to Queribus this year, I still feel as though I was there: every morning, the kids sit around the table and write journal entries (in French, bien sûr) about the day before. Some activities do not cause much of a stir and invite sentences like: “On est allés à la fête des abricots. C’était ennuyeux.” Queribus, and all of the châteaux Cathares got a much warmer reception.

This year’s fête in Cucugan was a bit of a disappointment, to tell the truth.

Last year, it was a medieval festival. There were tons of things to see and do: horseback riding, plays in the streets, people dressed up… it was one of the most fun things we did all of last summer.

So this year, when the best thing about the whole festival was watching a handful of kids march through the streets blowing into wind instruments at random intervals (this year’s theme was “Le Vent,” or the wind), it was a bit of a disappointment for those of us who had been to the one last year.

However, there was one good thing about the situation: because we were searching for ways to entertain the kids who had not gone up to the second Cathar château, Queribus (coming soon to a blog near you…), we ended up hiking up the the Moulin d’Omer, at the top of the town.

Last year, the Moulin had been closed to the public, so even though we bought some artisanal bread and cookies, we weren’t able to have the experience we did this year.

This time, the meunier (miller) was there, giving talks (in French, of course) to anyone who wanted to learn a bit more about the history of the Moulin. Alex and I listened for awhile, and once we realized how interesting it was, we asked the meunier if he wouldn’t mind giving a little talk to some Americans.

He was happy to oblige, and I tried my best to translate the specific vocabulary. The story he told us was very interesting. We learned about the history of mills and how the Crusaders brought back the technology from the Middle East. Apparently, the presence of a horse in every mill dates back to the Templar Knights, for whom horses were the most important thing next to the life of a man–even more important than the life of a woman.

This particular mill has parts that date back for centuries. The fact that groups of artisan bakers are bringing back these old modes of working is fascinating to me. The mill used to belong to a feudal lord, survived the French Revolution, fell into decay when the socialist ideals of sharing meant that everyone used the mill, and no one cared for it.

It’s an old mill that tells stories… and now it’s being used, once again, to make flour for bread. The contrasts are jarring: to see a mill that is so old be used again is strange. Stranger still is to hear the miller tell us that, until ten years ago, he was working in computer technology.

The miller seems so proud of his work, of the fact that every loaf is different, but every loaf is delicious. He made a point of saying that to make and eat artisanal bread is a choice: with artisanal bread, you aren’t able to guarantee similarity. Artisanal bread cannot be mass produced. It cannot be relied upon to be identical to other bread from the same bakery.

After leaving the mill, we tested some for ourselves, and I have to say, when given the choice, I know which bread I will choose.

I’m always impressed with the sorts of things the French find to fêter. So far, I’ve been to a lemon festival, a violet festival, several film festivals, a fête des fous (festival of the crazy people… sort of like a Mardi Gras festival) and now, an apricot festival. I still love it.

The apricot festival in Rivesaltes is 35 years old. It celebrates the harvest of the local apricots with live music, stalls selling everything from jam to juice to tarts, and an apricot-eating contest, to see who can eat the most apricots in two minutes.

For those of us not participating in the contest, there were also sausages and crêpes, as well as barbe à papa (cotton candy) as big as your head.

The festival wasn’t massive; it only took up the small central town square. And although some of the New York City kids seemed to find it a little bit trite (to be fair, once you did the rotation of all ten or so stalls, there wasn’t much to do besides pull up a chair and tuck in to a barquette of apricots), I thought it was charming. Am I becoming a bumpkin? Hmm… hard to say.

Mmm… apricots.

For the camp in Paziols, we center our cultural lessons on three main categories: the Middle Ages, with the châteaux, the garrigue, with the country festivals, and prehistory, with the Centre Européen de la Préhistoire à Tautavel.

The Centre is made up of two museums in the town of Tautavel, which is directly below the Caune de l’Arago, where the first European specimen of hominid was found.

The museums explore the history of man’s evolution: the first is devoted primarily to Homo erectus, the predecessor of Homo sapiens, and to specimens of rocks, bones and tools that were found at sites worldwide. The second museum is devoted to the site of the Caune de l’Arago, with a complete reconstruction of the inside of the cave, as well as a reconstruction of what the skeleton of the Caune de l’Arago would have looked like, considering the bones that were found.

Outside the museum is a demonstration of how men made fire throughout history, which was an excellent predecessor for the evening film that followed our visit to the museum: La Guerre du Feu. La Guerre du Feu is a French film about the first men in Europe and “the war” of fire: how fire was first domesticated by early societies of men. The combination of the almost clinical orderliness of the museum with the gritty reality of the film was an incredible experience. The fact that we had seen the Caune earlier that day made the film seem all the more real and true.

Paziols is in the Occident region of France: the southwestern Catalan country. The Occitan, aside from having its own culture and language (Occitan, which is very similar to Catalan), also has its own history.

In the early Middle Ages (from 800 to 1100), the Occitan region served as a home for the Cathars. The Cathars were a religious sect that divorced from the Catholic Church in order to pursue a more “Christian” way of life. The Cathars believed that God could not have created an evil world, and that all war, famine and general unpleasantness was the work of Satan. They built châteaux along the French-Spanish border as a stronghold to protect themselves against the Inquisition, who believed them to be heretics.

It is said that Europe produced two great cultures: the Greeks and the Occitans. The Cathars were a part of this Occitan culture. They believed in the art of Courtly Love, in troubadours, in etiquette and manners. But they were wiped out with the Inquisition as heretics, and now all that remains of them are a few crumbling châteaux high up in the garrigue of Southwestern France, a reminder of the military stronghold that existed along this border.

We visited Aguilar last night, in the evening, after the information office was closed and the tour guides had gone home for the night. We climbed up the remains of what had once been a stunning castle atop a hill: not like the castles you see in now-large cities, that seem to hold entire villages in them. These are more like early bunkers: just enough for a battalion and a few prisoners of war.

It’s also a “chantier botanique,” or a botanical path. As we climbed the stony ledge to the top, we saw wild fennel, fresh rosemary, and other plants indigenous to the area growing along the sides.

Aguilar is the lowest of the châteaux, and as such, is the one that has been ransacked the most over the past several centuries. There is much less left of it now than there is left of its neighbors. However, it is also the easiest to climb, which is why we let our invalid come along for the ride.

Although one of the counselors had to cart him back down.

Living out in the country means that you’re far away from everything. It’s an hour to the nearest big “grande surface,” or Wal-Mart-esque grocery store, which is a LeClerc. We take a big field trip every Monday to stock up on everything, but during the week, there’s only the tiny épicerie in our town to supply us with bread, fruit and salad.

However, the towns here in les Hautes-Corbières have figured out a way to make sure that people who live out here in the garrigue, especially those who aren’t quite as mobile, still have access to everything they could ever want.

There is a series of trucks that comes to Paziols every week. Monday is “la marchande des pêches,” a lady who sells peaches and apricots fresh off the tree, as well as homemade jams. On Tuesday, the “poissonier” comes to sell fresh fish to anyone in the village. Patrick, the butcher, also drives his van onto the main “place” on Tuesdays. Friday is “le marchand de volailles,” selling poultry like roasting chickens.

Saturday, however, is a favorite in this house. Saturday is pizza truck day.

Every Saturday around 6:00 PM, the pizza truck pulls onto the main “place” to take orders. There is a wood-burning oven in the back of the truck, and two workers make the pizzas to order, wrap them up in cellophane and parchment paper, and pass them off to the people waiting patiently to pick them up and take them home.

Last year, pizza truck day was a non-event. We would order a few pizzas (there were only eight of us then), put them on the tables, and let the kids serve themselves. This year, though, with twenty-one of us, it was a bit more difficult.

We ordered eleven pizzas for 8:30, but with such an order, the pizza truck was a bit late in delivering. The kids amused themselves by fooling around with the wheelchair of our one invalid, who had fractured his ankle go-karting a few days before.

When we finally got home, the rest of the counselors and I hacked into the un-sliced (they don’t do that in France) pizzas to pass around to the kids. It’s a huge change from delivery Domino’s back at home, but I think they liked it even better than what they’re used to.

Finally… I know you have all been eagerly waiting to hear about my adventures in Paziols. And for my first entry, I want to tell you all about the Fontaine des Eaux.

I am used to being by the seaside: I have lived in Cannes, Mallorca and New York, and I am accustomed to being in one of the two for the summer. However, here in Paziols, we’re inland a bit, and the only thing we have for water is a few rivers and streams… but they’re very fun to discover.

The first full day that the kids were here, we took them on a walk to the Fontaine des Eaux, one of the closes streams to the house. The Fontaine des Eaux is especially interesting because the water at the fountain, which is right next to the stream, always runs at 25 degrees Celsius. For centuries, people have been coming to this natural fountain, where the water is believed to cure eczema.

I don’t know about that… but we still had a great time wading with the kids. They really seemed to enjoy themselves, and even through themselves in, fully clothed. I was not quite as enthusiastic, but I still took pictures of the beautiful cliffs that surrounded the stream, and, of course, of the kids themselves hiking through the mucky river waters.

This is the last of my Mallorca posts. I’m already excited to write about all of the things that we’ve been doing since we got to Paziols: the kids are great, and we’ve already taken them on tons of walks around the area.
But before I get ahead of myself: this is Ses Salines. Ses Salines is the name of both a town and a salt mine in the Colonia San Jordi, a popular location for tourists on the southern tip of Mallorca. It’s about a twenty-minute drive from where I stayed in Llombards, and the Canadian and I liked to go every other day (when we weren’t exploring new beaches.)

The beach at Colonia San Jordi is great because of its length: you can walk for several kilometers along the shore. There are bars and restaurants on the beach, and there are tons of places to sit and tan or swim. It’s not as exciting as the secret beaches, but there are lots of people, and it’s a nice, familiar place to go and sit all day.

Ses Salines is right outside the San Jordi beach, and it’s the whole reason I’m writing this entry. Ses Salines are salt mines that were used all the way back to when the Romans colonized Mallorca. I had never seen salt mines before, and even though they aren’t opened to the public or really publicized in any way, I still found them very interesting to see.

Secret beach number four (and the final secret beach) is found in the Natural Park of Mondrago.

I showed you two of these nifty little signs yesterday, but I didn’t really explain them. Basically, all beaches (even the unguarded ones) have a map like this showing you where you are and who to call in an emergency. I like them because they help me to keep track of all the beaches I’ve seen, as well as to get back to them or recommend them if I want.

The first beach you stumble on in the park isn’t actually where we stopped. It’s got a very deep shoreline, which is pretty uncommon in the Mediterranean, but it reminded me a bit of my American beaches on the Atlantic.

There is a second beach as well, which you reach by means of a path that winds around some rocks. We were aiming for the third beach, which you can reach with a path through the woods. But we decided to be difficult again and keep going on the rocks.

It was difficult, but we got to see some cool things, like these craters full of sea salt, and it made finally reaching the beach much more worth it: swimming in the cool sea after that trek was unbelievable.

The actual beach was very similar to the one from the day before, but the Canadian says there were fewer fish. I have no idea: I just relished laying in the sun for one more day before leaving the shore for the next six weeks.

Where I currently am, in Paziols, there are a lot of fun streams and rivers to see (which you’ll be hearing about soon!), but the actual beaches are quite far away. I’m a mermaid at heart, and I miss the sea already.