Lots going on the past couple of days, in a relaxed way. Monday Lynn, Paulita, Earl and I did a “coordinated-effort” trip to Mirepoix, an ancient town about an hour from Quillan. Earl and I would be dropped off with our bikes at the Voie Verte (a primo converted rail trail) at Chalabre, and would ride to Mirepoix to meet up with Paulita and Lynn, who would drive there and shop & sightsee at the market, etc. Everyone would be happy and nothing much could go wrong…
The drop-off at Chalabre went well, and us two cyclists headed up the trail. This thing is almost flawless: NO CARS, tightly-packed light gravel surface, through beautiful forests and farmland, with a few off ramps to small villages, AND some spectacular curved tunnels so lengthy that you can’t see light at the other end and must rely on the automatic lighting inside the tunnel. We hammered our way on the bikes for many kilometers.
Meanwhile. Lynn and Paulita drove on up to Mirepoix, an ancient walled city. They shopped the market which turned out to be not-that-great, and looked around the old town. Unique architecture of old timbered buildings, with the second and third stories extending out over the sidewalk. A few desultory attempts at photography were apparently made, as you can see here. Anyhow, there they were.
Cycling happily and fastly on the Voie Verte, it turns out we were also riding ignorantly! Earl and I both thought the bike path actually entered directly into Mirepoix, when in fact it bypassed that town by several miles! We blew past a turn-off that would’ve taken us into Mirepoix, and kept going a few extra miles before discovering our mistake. As the time to meet up with Paulita and Lynn was fast escaping, we called them and arranged for a pickup at an intersection with the Voie Verte on their way home from Mirepoix. Sure it was a little embarrassing, but we are manly men and can withstand the derision that followed. We got over it fast, while hitting the town-square of Limoux for lunch on the way home. What a fun hidden site, you'd never know this place existed because it's totally invisible from the main thoroughfare we usually use heading past this town.
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| Earl holding up the Voie Verte sign for the photo |
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| Raging at the Cycling Gods who kept us from our destination! |
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| Limoux's unexpected beautiful town square with places to EAT! |
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| Lovely dry fountain! |
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| Just an example of HUNDREDS of acres of sunflower crops we passed.They harvest them to make oil, not pretty flowers. |
Next day, Tuesday, Lynn and I headed out for Foix (pronounced Fwahh), an even-more-ancient fortified castle high in the Pyrenees Mountains, with an old city, separate from the newer bustling modern urban area at its feet. No bike riding on this trip. Fun mountain driving for an hour or so got us there, then the usual search for parking began. We found a spot wayyyy at the base of the rocky mountainside which holds the Chateau. It was a real hike up there, which required us to walk through the “old town” just below the Chateau walls and towers. Turns out, there is serious shopping to be done in this part of Foix, so we did it.
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| See us parked way down there, silver car by the white building? We kept climbing... |
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| Church in old town which rang so beautifully at noon, Bells at the top |
After finding some cool presents to take back to the USA for the holidays, we kept hiking up to the Chateau. The story is that the first development of this site took place in the 10th Century, and over the ensuing centuries it’s been expanded, repaired, rebuilt, and occupied by various rulers and armies. Pretty cool to see, and imagine why there would be a use for something perched this high in the mountains, with strategic views over nearby valleys and meadows in all directions. The Chateau maintains a working full-scale reproduction of a “Trebuchet”, a weapon used to hurl heavy projectiles down on enemies below. I’ll include the Wikipedia description of this thing here:
“A trebuchet is a type of catapult that uses a hinged arm with a sling attached to the tip to launch a projectile. It was a common powerful siege engine until the advent of gunpowder. The design of a trebuchet allows it to launch projectiles of greater weights and further distances than a traditional catapult.”
There was also a lengthy tightly-wound staircase leading to the top of the tallest tower, with stone steps so old and worn that there were deep pockets in each step, where centuries full of people had walked, run, fought and maybe died while going up or down. As usual in old castles, the narrow stairs spiral up to the right, not the left. That way, invading enemies chasing defenders up the stairway did not have the use of their right hand and sword, while defenders could swoop down the stairs at the enemy with full right hand and arm weapon control. I bet invading armies searched really hard for left-handed recruits. Anyhow, I took a stairway photo that looks like an Escher drawing; hard to distinguish up from down… |
| Stone mason guy told us the legend of the forest maiden held captive in the tower |
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| That valley waayyyyy down below, and mountain, all dominated from this castle |
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| Lynn found the big meeting hall! |
We were castle-sated, so headed out for a late lunch before leaving town. Found a surprise small family-run place, and were the last customers seated before they closed out for the lunch crowd. Great meal, nice atmosphere, and fun to people to watch. Fun local beer too, with kind of a scary witch on the label "La Baouche". Remind me to tell you about the "hands above the table" courtesy rule sometime!
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| Ancient cave/stone underground room repurposed for retail store discount room |
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| Lynn finally looked up and found this cantilevered house |
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