Tag Archives: eric hall

Saturday 15th March 2014 – ONLY THIS MORNING I WAS PONDERING …

… about how I’m going to extract all of this dust and the like from the house as it is getting on my nerves. And I was still pondering when I entered LIDL this afternoon.

But not now, anyway. In LIDL today they were selling some 500-watt fireplace cleaners. I had a good look at one and from what I saw, with a few small modifications here and there, it will make quite a useful cylinder vacuum cleaner.

And 500 watts will run fine off my system for 10 minutes here and there, you know. So at just €26:00 it had to be worth a gamble.

Thatwasn’t all the exciting stuff in the shops at St Eloy this afternoon. Carrefour had something of a plant sale. Most of the stuff was rubbish but I managed to make up a tray of lettuce and a tray of green cabbage. I need to put the potager into order and this will hopefully help me make a start. I did nothing last year as you know and baby lettuce plants seem to do fine here.

This morning I dashed off 2500 words for Radio Anglais. It started off on something about the communes of France but it now seems to be something of a geography/history/politics lesson, and there’s plenty more to come as well. A real pot-boiler you might say.

At the football tonight … well … I was going to say that I’m speechless but I’ve seen this happen so many times that I ought to be used to it by now.

Pionsat had only 10 players out there tonight but of those 10, 4 of them were 1st Xi players and another one or two had featured for the 1st XI too.

By half-time that had a comfortable 2-0 lead and looked like they were getting ready to run out of sight. I’d lost count of the number of shots on goal that they had had. But then they simply switched off.

St Angel pulled one back out of a defensive error from nothing, something that took me by no surprise at all given the previous 10 minutes, and I had this uneasy feeling running down the back of my spine that I’ve had so many times before.

However Jerome, who I haven’t seen for ages at the club, roared back up the field and scored a third goal before anyone had drawn breath so it was ok, I suppose. But then, the whole team went back to sleep.

And in two ridiculous moments of madness the team gave away two of the silliest goals that I have ever seen. I couldn’t believe it, and neither did anyone else.

But if that’s not bad enough, just as the team galvanised itself into action and laid siege to the St Angel goal, the referee blew for full time – by my reckoning a good 10 minutes short. Yes, we kicked off at 20:00 on the dot, played 45 minutes of fist half (plus stoppages), had a 15 minute break at half-time, and then played another 45 minutes (plus stoppages) and I was back in Caliburn at 21:38 on the clock. No, that doesn’t add up at all.

But then it shouldn’t really have mattered. Pionsat should have been down the road and out of sight, having fielded the strongest side that they’ll ever field for a hundred years.

-4

Friday 15th March 2014 – I HAD A NICE AFTERNOON …

…out today. Terry rang up to say that he was going to Brico Depot and did I fancy a ride?

Not that I was doing very much else at the time and so I thought “why not?”. A nice summer day (because it really was) in pleasant company. And we didn’t get back until 19:00 either.

Just for a change this week, I was up at … errr … 09:20 which is early for me just now. And after breakfast I attacked the website again and updated a few more pages and added one or two more.

The boulangère came round this morning and we had a little chat, and that, dear reader, was the sum total of my day.

But not quite.

I was on my travels again during the night and I remember at one point thinking to myself “God, this is boring. I won’t bother remembering this”. And when I woke up, all that I could remember of the night’s activity was that comment and nothing else.

It does rather remind me of the famous Tommy Cooper joke –
“I knew a man who dreamt that he was awake. And when he woke up, he was!”

-4

Thursday 13th March 2014 – I’VE HAD ANOTHER DAY …

… where I’ve not been in too much of a hurry to leave my bed.

I put that down to still being awake at 03:45 this morning, and so getting up at … errr … 10:20 is not too unreasonable.

I’ve hardly done any work either – well – not that kind of work anyway. The house remains practically untouched. But noticing when I went downstairs that the batteries were aleady fully-charged, and at 12:30 there was 50.5 amps going into the dump load and the wires were pretty warm, that called for action. I plugged an extension cable into the overcharge circuit and wired the 12-volt fridge in. That calmed everything down a little. The water still got hot (68°C) but the wires stayed cool-ish and the fridge worked.

I’ll leave it like that until I fix up the new batteries that will replace the existing creaky ones and then I’ll wire in the fridge into the permanent circuit for the summer.

I threw out some food and veg peelings that I had forgotten to deal with before I left here (some of them could have walked to the compost bin on their own) and then unloaded part of Caliburn. For lunch I went to fetch the bread – to find that the boulanger had forgotten to come on Tuesday, and that was really the only reason why I had rushed home.

I had to go down the road to the Intermarché at Pionsat to buy a baguette.

GRRRR!

This afternoon I updated the Trois Rivieres pages of my Canada website

. I took a pile more photos of the town when I was there last year and so they needed to be added on and the commentary written. I’ve also reviewed a few subsequent pages of my drive down the Chemin du Roy

and that has spawned a couple of new pages too.

So I’ve not been idle.

But I do realise now why I try not to work on the computer between 19:00 and 21:00. I get so carried away with what I’m doing that I forget to make tea and I end up going hungry.

And it’s 5 years since my dear friend Liz departed. I can’t believe that it’s been so long. I hope that she is sleeping peacefully. My abiding memory is just before she went for her operation, she was making out a list of names.
“Are these the people that I need to contact to let them know your news?” I asked.
“Ohh no” she replied. “If it all goes wrong, this is a list of the people I’m going to come back to haunt”.

-4

Wednesday 12th March 2014 – NO PHOTOS TODAY, PEOPLE.

Yes, you can tell that I’m back home. And nothing exciting ever seems to happen around here and I never seem to do anything worth recording, especially as, having disconnected all of the alarms today, it was … errr … 12:20 when I crawled out of bed.And if it weren’t for the fact that I needed to visit the beichstuhl I would probably still be in bed right now.

It usually takes me a day or so to recover from a journey such as yesterday’s (I’m not as young as I used to be) and so a day of rest isn’t such a surprise really. And there was such a lot going on through the night (and the morning) that most of it slipped through my fingers. But I do recall running some kind of detective agency such as that of Hercule Poirot, and I had three girls working for me. The youngest was telling all of us about a superb proposition that had come her way and how it was going to make her a fortune, but it was the kind of proposition that had “SCAM” written right across it in illuminated capital letters and I really thought that, having worked for me for three years, she would know better than to fall for something like this.

I didn’t quite do nothing though. With over 160 amp-hours of surplus electricity by 15:00, water temperature in the home-made 12-volt immersion heater off the gauge and temperature of 34°C in the verandah, I treated myself to the second electrically-heated shower of the year.

And not only that, there was enough hot water left for a shave too and for the washing up as well. And there was enough of that seeing as how I made a mega-lentil-and-green-pepper curry. On the gas stove too. The temperature up here in the attic topped 20°C today – a waste of time lighting the woodstove – I’d be burnt out of the room before the stove was hot enough to cook on

And do you remember the charge controller that packed up last year and mysteriously started up the other week? Well, it’s just as mysteriously stopped again..

-3

Tuesday 11th March 2014 – I’M BACK HOME NOW.

Pulled in at 21:10 tonight after a long drive back from the Pyrenees.

I can’t leave Rennes les Bains though without showing you my digs for thr last few days. That’s it over there in the background, the building there with the red shutters. And my very comfortable room was the one wiht the open window.

I told the owner that I might be back later on and he gave me a card. “Give us a ring to let us know”.
Absolutely – and then they will have time to arrange a quick holiday, or to close for redecoration or the like.

But this photo will give you an idea of what Rennes les Bains is really like.
“The smoking of anything other than tobacco is strictly prohibited on the terrace”.

Rennes-les-Bains is one of these places that, for no reason at all (because house prices are not cheap like the Combrailles) seems to have attracted a huge “New-Age” community. It would do my head in after a while if I had to live here.

I followed the Lady Who Lives In The Sat-Nav as far as Castres and then followed the signs to Albi. And then I turned off the recommended route as I wanted to make a deviation.
Ever since 2004 when it opened, I’ve been trying to get to the Millau Viaduct and I’ve never actually managed it. Something has always cropped up.

But today in Albi I picked up the signs and even though this meant a late return home, well, here I am. Driving across the aforementioned.

And doesn’t Strawberry Moose take a good photo?

Anyone who knows the southern slopes of the Massif Centrale will know of Millau. There’s a major Route Nationale that runs from Bordeaux and the Biscay coast over the Lyon and Switzerland along the valley of the River Tarn, and there’s a major Route Nationale that runs north-south over the mountains between Paris and the Western Mediterranean coast of south-west France and Nothern Spain.

These two roads collide at a little roundabout in Millau and it is no joke to say that people have sat here without moving a wheel for five hours as the traffic snarls itself up well and truly.

The first time I came here I didn’t know about this. I gave up and went for a coffee. Ever since then, I’ve come at night.

All that changed in 2004.

Plans had been proposed on several occasions for a way of dealing with the traffic but ultimately they bit the bullet and set to work to build what at the time was the tallest road bridge in the world. Opened in December 2004, it turned Millau into something of a tranquil backwater, much to the relief of the residents.

It’s a magnificent structure, a maximum height of 343 metres above ground at its highest point, and one of the pillars, at a height of 245 metres, is the tallest pillar in the world.

And, incredible as it might seem, once it opened there was an outcry from certain local businesses that their takings had dropped since the building of the viaduct.

There’s no pleasing some people.

Travelling north on the A75, I stopped off to visit another iconic viaduct along the way. This time, it’s a railway viaduct, the magnificent Viaduc de Garabit, situated in Ruynes-en-Margeride in the Cantal.

And there’s not another viaduct in the world like this. It is magnificent.

Everywhere you go in this country, you only have to look at ametal structure and someone will tell you that Gustave Eiffel (he of the Tower fame) built it.

In this case they would be right for once – at least, in the general scheme of things. Inspired by the engineer Leon Boyer, it was Eiffel’s company that built it and it took four years, from 1880 to 1884 although, rather perversely, the viaduct was finished before the railway line.

It is still open for traffic too, which is quite astonishing seeing how much of France’s railway heritage has closed down, and even this was closed for a short spell a couple of years ago.

I had quite a chat with an old woman who told me that her grandfather had helped build it as a boy. She reckoned that in 5 years time the trains will have gone from here “just 3 or 4 passengers on each train – 50 years ago we had 3 or 4 hundred”. Now, there are just two passenger trains and one goods train each day in each direction.

It will be a shame if it does close down though. While you digest the view from the aforementioned lady’s back garden (with grateful thanks), I can tell you that it’s 122 metres above the base of the river and is almost 565 metres long.

And in case you are wondering (which I’m sure that you are), there are 678,768 rivets in the construction.

Since 1965 it’s a Monument Historique.

That’s not all though. The valley underneath, that of the River Truyère, was dammed by the Barrage de Grandval in 1959, for hydro-electric purposes.

But someone has pulled out the plug as you can see, much to the dismay of the boat owners and the guy who owns the water sports concession.

Not for me though. We can see the original road beidge that was drowned as the valley was flooded. I bet it’s not every day that this has seen the light.

-2

Monday 10th March 2014 – THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE MOST FAMOUS …

… view of Rennes-le-Chateau. It features in almost every book and article written about the place, and many people, including Yours Truly, have always thought that it was an aerial photograph.

But not any longer, because I can now tell you exactly how it was done and being airborne plays absolutely no part whatever in the procedure

Probably about 7 or 8 miles from here as the crow flies (those buildings at the bottom centre of the shot, just below Cardou, are the Thermal Spa buildings here at Rennes les Bains) but a heck of a lot further away by road, that’s for sure, is a very high rocky crag.

On this crag are situated the ruins of the Chateau de Le Bezu, and it is from right up here on the top, overlooking the sheer drop of several hundred metres, that the photograph of Rennes-le-Chateau has been taken.

But before you begin to set off here in droves, let me give you a couple of words of warning. There is not one single signpost to the Chateau from anywhere. There is no approved rounte and no marked pathway.

Even the Lady Who Lives In The Satnav tells me that there’s no road that goes anywhere near it. I found my way by tapping in the co-ordinates of Longitude and Latitude and following a series of cart tracks by trial end error until I could go no further.

Here, I was able just about to make out some stone blocks interwoven between the limestone outcrops (good job I had some binoculars) and so I reckoned that I could well be onto something here.

While I was reflecting over how I was going to reach the top I was joined by another van-driver. I fell in with him and we immediately started talking solar panels as his van was fitted out exactly as Caliburn, even down to the solar panel on the roof and the control boxes.

He’s a local yokel (and a very vocal local yokel too) and he’s been up here beffore and so knows the way. And very kindly, he offered to accompany me to the top so that I wouldn’t lose myself in the shrubbery.

Fortune really does smile on the brave!

Now, I’m not going to tell you anything much about the Chateau as this is yet another place that has been the subect of so much nonsense. I’ve even seen two completely different and contradictory “official histories” of the chateau.

You can do your own research from that point of view, and good luck to you too.

Let me just tell you this, though.
There is a best-selling “conspiracy theory” book that speaks about the Castle in great detail, and the authors express total bewilderment as to why a castle should be built here on this site when there were several others doing the same job in the immediate vicinity.

Anyway, I have an answer to that too

While you look at the peak of Mount Bugarach, where the world was supposed to end in 2012 if you remember correctly, you’ll notice to the extreme left another peak in the far distance.

Just beyond that peak is the Mediterranean and the port of Narbonne, and Narbonne has until very modern times been the leading port of Southern France and Northern Spain (remember until the late 15th Century the Muslems were in possession of much of the Spanish coast).

I counted three mountain passes coming this way from Narbonne, one heading off to the interior and two heading south towards the Pyrenees and Spain. Just think of all the trade goods that would be coming by these passes into this area for onward passage avoiding the Moorish galleys, and what would be the value of these goods?

Any nobleman bent on increasing his wealth (and many of these noblemen were as bent as they come) would stick a castle right on this promontory so that he could intercept the pack trains coming through the passes and demand his toll.

And the reason why the castle wasn’t immediately destroyed once it had been captured during the many times that it changed hands was because the new owner wanted it intact for exactly that purpose.

I went to Axat later to find the grave of the enigmatic Abbé Henri Boudet, one of Saunière’s closest confidants.

Here it is, and this is another so-called riddle for which there is a simple explanation.

So with him being priest at Rennes les Bains and with his mother and sister being buried there, how come he wasn’t?

The answer to that is that his mother and sister predeceased him and so he was alone. And we saw yesterday that e relinquished his living in 1914 and here on the grave, it has him dying in (March) 1915. It seems, from what I have been able to find out, that he was dying of cancer and it was probably that which caused him to abandon his post. Of course, he had no-one to care for him there but at Axat, his brother’s widowed wife was still alive and quite young too, so it is very likely that he moved to Axat so that she might care for him.

And so he died at Axat (it says that on the flat headstone) and having seen the road between Axat and Rennes-les-Bains today (and it’s more than double the 15kms that a modern best-selling author tells us) and what it is like to travel along it in certain places, I shudder to think of what it might have been like 100 years ago. No wonder they left him here at Axat.

Just a couple more things to do.

We are told that there is a statue of Jesus on a mountain top near Antugnac gazing over to his burial place at Cardou. No co-ordinates were given for this statue so it took some locating but eventually I discovered it.

Today though, he’s looking over at a brand-new villa because they have built a housing estate around him. And he couldn’t have seen Cardou anyway as there is an outlying ridge in the way that just about obscures the perspective.

A lot has been made about the two figure eights in the date on the cross – how they are formed of two small, letter ‘o’s. Clearly the propagators of this particular theory have never seen the Visigoth column in the Church of Mary Magdelene at Rennes le Chateau that we saw the other day. On there, the figure eight in the “Mission 1891” is exactly the same and they made no theory about that. It is in fact standard mason practice and you see it everywhere. It’s just that some masons are better than others.

As an aside – who says that the statue is of Jesus anyway? There’s no identification at all on the statue.

Sauniere was for a while the priest of Antugnac and so I went for a quick look at the church there.

Not much to see as it has escaped the enlargement processes so common elsewhere, but you can see at least three different styles of stonework in its construction, two of them being quite low down. The earliest stonework looks quite primitive but I wouldn’t like to hazard a date or period.

Still five minutes before dark, so a quick nip up to Montazels which was where Sauniere was born.

But here’s another conspiracy theory that everuone else has missed. High on the hills overlooking the town is an old weather-worn cross. And that is lined up absolutely and plumb-perpendicularly (I’m glad that I brought my home-made groma with me – that course in Roman surveying was magnificent) with Rennes-le-Chateau.

So what’s the reason for this please. Answers on a postcard to …

And I also found the world’s most astonishing vegetarian pizza while I was passing through Couiza. What can I say?

And we had another sales enquiry today. It’s all happening, isn’t it? Signwriting Caliburn pays dividends in spades.

-5

Sunday 9th March 2014 – WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY …

… and I’ve been taking full advantage of it. Not least in the Thermal Spa. And today’s verdict?

The Mudbath – same as yesterday (the mud had worn off during the night)
The Circular Shower – can’t see what this did that three friends with hosepipes couldn’t do (I, of course, don’t have three friends)
The Penetrating Shower – I was worried about this and when she said “lie face-down on the bed”, that did nothing to allay my fears. However it’s a horizontal bar of five or six very fine but high-pressure shower heads all aimed at your back.
In the jacuzzi, a rather large woman jumped in and landed right on my foot.
“I’m so sorry – was that your foot?”
“Yes it was” I replied “but don’t worry – I still have one left”.
I finished it off with a massage today. I was hoping for a young blond nymphette – I ended up with a retired former Soviet discus-thrower.
“I’ll massage your clavicles, shall I?”
“Not while I have my strength you won’t”.

Apart from that, I’ve been out and about again. This is the Chateau of Arques, about 15kms awy from here.

It dates from the aftermath of the Crusade against the Cathars and is said to control an important route used by transhumance farmers as they pass up and down to and from the higher slopes, but looking at its position here and how easily it is overlooked, it’s good that the transhumance farmers didn’t possess any cannon. A few bits of ordnance on the surrounding hills and the castle wouldn’t last long.

As it happens, it was a ruin up until about 120 or so years ago but has since had quite a decent renovation.

From there I went up to the village of Peyrolles. This is another place that features in all of these stories but there was nothing of interest to me.

That is except a plot of land (that wasn’t for sale, unfortunately) that had one of the best views that I have seen for a while – right up the Vallée du Salz past Cardou (on the left) and the ruins of the Chateau de Blanchefort (on the right) almost all the way to Rennes-les-Bains.

The modern road to Rennes-les-Bains is not the original road by any means, as I mentioned the other day.

The original road runs from Serres and goes over the river by this absolutely magnificent packhorse bridge, passing right by the foot of Cardou and then through the village of Montferrand to its final destination.

Now, does this road remind you of anything? It ought to do, because you have seen something similar before.

Do you remember when I wrote my magnum opus about Riccarton Junction back in 2007/2008? We found the road that went down there too and there were not half some striking similarities. It made me feel quite at home, I tell you

But as for Cardou itself, it’s a magnificent, awe-inspiring mountain and you can see why it’s featured so much in the folklore of many of these legends.

Despite the fact that there are dozens of other mountains around, one or two of which are higher that Cardou, it’s nevertheless the dominant feature all the way around here – see it from miles around.

But one or two of the legends of Cardou are not quite so wholesome and healthy. At least two writers have insisted that Jesus is buried somewhere up there in a tunnel and that the rockfall that you see there was engineered to cover the traces of the excavation.

Mind you, neither of these two authors explained in any kind of detail how this rockfall was engineered in the days before controlled explosive. The usual historical way of doing this, by piling the rock on a large wooden platform and then burning the platform, would not have been sufficient to have produced this fall.

But no matter what method they chose, it must surely have been an interesting experience for the watchers at the foot of Cardou.

Now if any place is ever likely to push Rennes-le-Chateau off the top of the pile of places about which more rubbish has been talked than anywhere else on the planet, then it has to be this place.

This is a lieu-dit (or hamlet called) Les Pontils on the road between Serres and Arques and it has a quite eerie claim to fame.

It may not look like much but on that flat platform over there was until 1988 a tomb that has been said by so many people to be the inspiration behind the painting Les Bergers d’Arcadie – “The Shepherds of Arcadia” – by Nicolas Poussin.

If this is so, then it’s a magnificent feat by Poussin seeing as how he painted his oeuvre in the 1630s, and yet all of the evidence available places the building of the tomb to … errr … 1903.

Someone did reply that there was an earlier, identical tomb here that was destroyed on royal orders later in the 17th Century but that begs the questions “how did they know that it was identical?” and “how did they know that this was the spot?” We’re dealing with a period before photography and GPS recording. And no-one as far as I am aware, has produced any kind of evidence to support this story of a royal order.

It’s connected with a phrase “Et In Arcadia Ego” which may people claim is bad Latin (there’s no verb) and hides an anagram or a coded message, but Latin is one of those languages where there is no pronoun (the verb is declined in order to reflect the doer of the action) but Ego is a pronoun and is used for emphasis or else in certain cases when there is no verb. And in that case it is put at the end of the sentence so the phrase would be something like “And I, in Arcadia”. That’s perfectly acceptable to say that in English and the construction is also good Latin.

But if you want a real mystery, one that no-one has picked up, go to the cemetery in Rennes les Bains. We have four main actors in this conspiracy – Saunière of course, his two friends Boudet and Gélis, and his servant girl Denarnaud.

And what do they all have in common? The answer to that is that each one of their families has a tomb in the cemetery at Rennes-les-Bains, although not one of the actors is buried in it.

You could make up a decent conspiracy theory about this too.

But that’s not all that’s exciting in the cemetery either. What about this?

This is a grave belonging to someone called Jean Vié and I bet he’s glad that he’s here because he must have been called some rotten names at school. His name is a phonetic expression of the pronunciation of the name of the month – janvier – January.

Not only that, the way that the date is expressed – 7 bre – is quite common masons’ shorthand for the month of September, but couple that with the emphasis of the date 1 (as in first), you could make up a date of 17 January – and that was a day upon which a lot of things happened during this mystery.

That would make a good conspiracy theory too – totally overlooked by everyone so far.

Our January man is said to be the predecessor to the Abbé Boudet and it is also said that Boudet officiated over his interment – which if he did, his appointment to the church here must have been extremely rapid.

And one thing that should be mentioned is that the January man is buried in the plot right next door to Boudet’s family plot.

Coincidence or what?

-5

Saturday 8th March 2014 – I HAVE DECIDED …

… thatI’ll be staying on in Rennes-les-Bains for a few days. And for several reasons too.
Firstly – There’s so much going on here and in the area
Secondly – I’ve found a cosy little B&B where I’m having good value for money
Thirdly – I don’t have to be home until Tuesday night (and not necessarily then either)

So all in all, it seems like a good plan, even though the town has seen much better days than these days, as you can probably imagine.

This morning, first stop was to see what remained of the Chateau de Blanchefort. These (such as they are) are perched on a mountain top right opposite the legendary Cardou, the mountain that has figured in so much of the conversation around here.

But getting there is by no means easy. Not as exhausting as the climb up to Montségur the other day, but there is just so much of it and the path is in a terrible condition.

Immersed in mud, and the bridges, such as they are, are like this. It’s another one of these walks that is not for the faint-hearted.

The castle was the former home of Bertrand de Blanchefort. He was 4th Grand Master of the Knights Templar, whose period of office was from 1153 to 1170, and this is just about all that I could find of the remains of his castle.

I’ve found nothing that gives me much help about the history of the place, but I imagine that with it being a Templar stronghold, the suppression of that order in the early 14th Century led to its downfall.

It’s not quite all that remains of the castle. I had a good rummage around and found quite a few stones, such as these examples, that have clearly been “dressed”.

I can’t think what else stones such as these might have been used for, if not for part of the interior of the castle. You won’t find stones like these in a goatherd’s hut, unless he’s pinched them from a ruined castle of course.

Right down there at the bottom of the valley, out of the shot unfortunately, is the River Salz and it’s from there (or thereabouts) that I’ve walked.

You can see now why it was that it took me so long to reach here, regardless of the state of the path and the bridhes (such as they are).

Across the river valley on the far bank is a loggers’ road, and that particular road has featured in some of the stories too.

This is a close-up of the famous “Cardou” mountain.

Apparently Jesus is buried in the side of the mountain somewhere. Or was it the Holy Grail? Or perhaps the Ark of the Covenant? I forget now, or maybe I’m becoming confused. But a good number of these tens of thousands of books consider Cardou as playing an important role in whatever mystery there might be in this area.

But leaving all of the conjecture aside, let’s sit for a while right at the top and admire the view.

In case you are wondering about the town over there on that crest, that is of course the famous Rennes-le-Chateau where we were yesterday morning – the place where Bérenger Sauniere made his discoveries that transformed this area from an isolated, abandoned rural backwater into a trendy esoteric tourist venue.

That down there is Coustaussa where we went yesterday afternoon to see the ruins of the castle and also the grave of the Abbé Antoine Gélis who was murdered at the vicarage and whose murder was never solved (no Miss Marple in France of course – she would never have missed out on a Murder at the Vicarage in the UK)

I showed you yesterday a photo of how the Chateau of Coustaussa dominated the valley of the Salz River – so just look at how the Chateau de Blanchefort dominates the Chateau of Coustaussa

This afternoon, it was Open Day at the Spa. Three “goes” for just €18:00 – makes a mockery of the €50-odd for a shower at Neris-les Bains.

I wasn’t going to miss out on that, and so here’s my report of the afternoon’s visit –
The therapeutic shower – like being stuck up against a wall by someone armed with a Kärcher
The aerobath – last time I had an experience like this was when mum put all five of us kids in the bath together after we had had baked beans on toast for tea.
The mudbath – nice, hot and gooey. Has done wonders for my skin and according to my landlady here at my little B&B makes me look 10 years younger – as long as I don’t have a shower and wash it off!

I followed that with an hour in the sauna and jacuzzi for just €3:00 and after all of today’s activities I feel like a new man. Yes, I’m fed up of the old one.

Tea was interesting. No restaurant here in the town and so, remembering that I had the camping gear (not that I intend to do any camping) in the back of Caliburn, I went and cooked some pasta and tinned ratatouille.

I’m totally whacked too and so I’m going to have what remains of an early night.

-4

Friday 7th March 2014 – THERE’S BEEN MORE RUBBISH …

… written about this place than anywhere else on the planet. And I shall be contributing my fair share too … "groan" – ed.

Yes, you’ve guessed it. I’m in Rennes-le-Chateau and what am I doing here? Looking for the Holy Grail? Looking for the Children of Jesus? Looking for the tomb of Mary Magdalene? Looking for the lost Cathar treasure?

Or have I simply come for a nosy around to see what all the fuss has been about since an elderly housekeeper strung along a dazzling urbanite with promises of vast wealth and fortune in oder to ensure that she would be well-cared for in the twilight of her life?

This is the interior of the church of St Mary Magdalene at Rennes-le-Chateau and although it looks quite beautiful today (which it doesn’t, as it happens – it is badly in need of attention which is totally astonishing considering how much money comes here these days), it wasn’t anything like this 130 years ago.

When a new priest, Bérenger Saunière, was appointed to the parish, he was horrified at the state of the place. It had been abandoned during the French Revolution almost 100 years earlier and although there had been a religious revival, the fervour had not reached Rennes-le-Chateau and the building was on the point of collapse.

He borrowed a little money and made a start on some urgent renovations. But when he turned his attention to the altar, he found that one of the pillars was partly hollow and some parchments had been stuffed into it.

Hollow pillars are nothing new in churches. If you’ve been following my adventures over the last few years you will know from my frequent visits to Auvergnat churches with Marianne that it’s quite customary to have something similar in a church, and it’s where the sacred relics are kept.

And, as you know because I’ve told you this before, there was an inventory of relics carried out in all French churches in the mid-19th century. This church was no exception, and in the diocesan registers there is the report of the visit, and …
Bishop’s investigator “are there any relics in the church?”
Saunière’s predecessor “more than likely”.
It’s curious, to say the least, that Saunière’s predecessor could not give a definitive answer, especially when it’s something that falls within his responsibility.

As for the parchments, there is no dispute whatever that they were found. As to their content however, you’ll have to make up your own mind about that because every person tells a different story.

One thing that should maybe be mentioned however is that the pre-Revolutionary priest of the parish, the Abbé Bigou, was the confessor to several notable families in the area. Believing that the Revolutionaries would pillage absolutely everything that they could find, Bigou’s secret hiding place- the hollowed column used as an altar support – would make a safe cache for anything important.

And Bidou? He fled the Revolution and died in exile, never returning to Rennes-le-Chateau.

So Saunière found some parchments in a hollowed-out column. The next thing of note to happen is that some time later there’s a little enigmatic note in his diary – “ohh, by the way, I found a tomb today”. And then absolute silence.

He’s next in the graveyard attached to the church, frantically digging away to such a degree that the mayor of the commune makes a formal complaint to the Bishop. And then Saunière starts to spend money like water – tens of thousands of pounds.

He rebuilds the church and the presbytery, he refurbishes the village’s water supply, he builds a new road, and then he buys some land and builds himself a sumptious villa with outhouses and a magnificent tower that serves as a library.

He’s then investigated by his bishop – where did the money come from?

The conclusion is that he’s been selling masses. And there’s no doubt that he did. But just how many would he have to have sold in order to have amassed so much money? It’s unthinkable. He’s suspended from office but he carries on as before, taking no notice. Even though there’s a newspaper “advertisement” from the bishop advising his parishioners that he has been relieved of his functions, no-one takes any notice at all. He dies and takes his secret with him to the grave.

Only his faithful housekeeper is aware of the situation. Once she let slip that “the people around here are walking on gold but they just don’t realise it”. She sells the villa to an urbanite from the coast but remains in occupation promising the purchaser that she will make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But she too takes her secret with her to the grave and that is that.

So where does this leave us?

I’m not going to waste anyone’s time with conjecture. There’s enough rubbish been written already about all of this.

But firstly, one look at this site will tell you that this is the most magnificent defensive situation one could ever imagine, and the view from here commands absolutely everything. Nothing can move within a 20-mile radius without being observed from here.

If I were a neo-historical figure looking for a place to build a palace and a town for my followers, I would choose nowhere else but this. And there is evidence of occupation going back thousands of years – Stone Age, Iron Age, Gallo-Roman – you name it.

But the Visigoths came to this area in the 5th Century and set up a Kingdom. Their capital city was called Rhedae and from what we know, the site of Rennes-le-Chateau corresponds in every detail with the contemporary description of Rhedae.

Tons of Visigoth artefacts have been discovered in the area and the church itself contains much evidence of Visigoth stonework, sculpturez and artefacts, such as this magnificent carving that Saunière discovered, face-down on the floor and being used as a flagstone.

There is therefore little doubt that the modern-day Rennes-le-Chateau is the historical Rhedae

In fact, on my mega-ramble around the site this morning I counted three and perhaps 4 concentric rings of defences around the site, and there is no evidence to suggest that anything much of this relates to a more modern period.

So whoever was fortifying this site really meant it

Now if you remember from our discussions a few years ago, it’s perfectly normal for there to be a small chapel included in a castle or chateau once the Lord has converted to Christianlty and, as I have said, there’s certainly a Visigoth presence in the church here.

But as Christianity gained in influence and barbarity slowly died out (not that you would ever notice it) the church would take over more of the site and the castle or chateau would be reduced in size.

This is the current chateau, right next to the church. But from what I can see at a distant glance, there is nothing particularly Visigoth about this – although I have been told subsequently that part of the foundations is believed to be of Visigoth origin.

And in any case, this is not where I would have my chateau. Mine would be on the highest corner of the walls with the best view – right in fact where Saunière build his tower-library.

Anyway, to continue onwards. Saunière says that he found a tomb. What evidence is there that there was a tomb here? Plenty, as it happens.

In several cases, there are entries in the parish registers of people being “buried in the tomb of the Lords” – the last one being in the 1730s. And it’s only after that date that the Lords (and Ladies) were buried ordinarily in the cemetery.

There have been three inspections of the church using SONAR – a device that measures reflected echoes from the ground – and they have each given a similar result – that at a depth of 5 metres or so under the church there is a reading that corresponds with what one would expect to see if there were a cavern below.

No entrance to this cavern was found, though, and the easiest way to hide an entrance into a cavern (from the outside, anyway) would be to use it as a grave and bury a body in it, and then fill it over. And maybe this was why Saunière was digging frantically in the graveyard. Perhaps the parchments had given him a clue to whose grave it was that led into the cavern.

As an aside – following what have been described as “a few deplorable incidents” (of which we can all hazard a guess) the cemetery is locked and access is only granted to relatives of the inhabitants of the cemetery. I wish that I had known this back in May 2013

But this is no place for speculation. There’s enough of that about already. And some of the speculation would appear to be manifestly false. Saunière was not always “rolling in money” – even after having discovered whatever it was that he discovered, he had times when there was so little about that the work on his beloved Villa Bethania came to a sudden halt. If he really were blackmailing someone about a guilty secret, he would simply go back for more cash. Or if it were a regular flow of money that he was receiving, he would have planned his work more carefully.

Some say that, being an unltra-Royalist (which he certainly appeared to be), the French monarchist parties were paying him handsomely to propagate their cause. But with a parish of just a few hundred souls, their vote wouldn’t have been worth very much.

And much of the rumour and supposition that circulated following a “disclosure” by someone in Paris in the 1970s and 1980s is now considered by most authorities to be based on a forgery.

Nevertheless, he did receive money – and plenty of it – from somewhere. And one of his confidants, a priest by the name of Father Gélis from the neighbouring village of Coustaussa, was brutally murdered one night while all of this was going on.

Even today, the locals at Coustaussa (and I found some pretty vocal local yokels who told be everything I want to know) consider that Gélis’ neohew did the deed and did it for the money that Gélis was supposed to have been handling on behalf of Saunière (although the local police dismissed the nephew as a suspect and went to great pains to state that the money remained untouched.

And so you pay your money and you take your choice.

If you want to find out more about the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau, then there are enough books written on the subject to rebuild completely every single one of the three and maybe four concentric rings of denfensive walls around the village of Rennes-le Chateau. Don’t just read one of them though otherwise you will end up with a very skewed viewpoint and – perish the thought – you might even start to believe that author’s particular slant on all of this.

There are ten thousand books, ten thousand authors, and ten thousand different opinions about the mystery of Rennes-le Chateau.

While I was in Coustaussa checking the grave of Father Antoine Gélis (and believe me, there is nothing in the world more sad than an abandoned cemetery), I went for prowl around the ruined castle.

It was built on an eminence at the foot of Rennes-le-Chateau with the aim of controlling the valley of the River Salz, which as you can see, it does in spades.

It dates from the 11th and 12th centuries, times of much turbulance in this frontier province, and fell to the Crusading forces in 1210. Nevertheless, it was the scene of a small rebellion, which didn’t last long, but the reprisals were, well, severe, as you might expect whenever Simon de Montfort was about.

This led to the first round of demolition

It was re-established as some kind of manor house in the 16th Century but the Revolution put paid to that. It was sold into private hands and the new owner treated it as a quarry, selling off all of the stones to the locals in the neighbourhood for their various building projects.

That really marked the end of the Chateau as we know it.

It’s still in private hads today and one is supposed to ask the owner for permission to visit the castle (which is not for the faint-hearted as it really isn’t very secure)

I duly presented myself at the relevant address, only to discover that it has been a long time since the owner has taken the trouble to visit his own premises, and so I took it upon myself to enter. I wasn’t going to let a ruin like this pass me by.

So now having given Caliburn a good wash (because, believe me, he needed it after the snows and salty roads of Andorra) I’m now in the pretty-derelict spa town of Rennes-les-Bains. A couple of things I need to do here.

+45

-34

Thursday 6th March 2014 – I’M IN QUILLAN TONIGHT

And in case you are wondering where Quillan might be, it’s back in France again in the Département of the Aude about 50kms from Carcassonne.

But I’m not going to Carcassonne (well, at least, not yet) – I’m going to somewhere quite different, more of which anon

Today, though, I left Andorra nice and early in the bright sunlight and to cheer me up even more, I found a petrol station selling diesel at 111.3 cents per litre, which has to be the cheapest that I can get anywhere in Europe.

The climb up and out of Andorra was rather fraught though. They were still dealing with the after-effects of the heavy snowfall the other day, and what wasn’t helping matters was that there was a really strong wind up aloft. That’s not a cloud coming over the top of the mountains – that’s the snow being whipped off by the wind.

I was going that way too and the higher the road climbed into the mountains, the worse the road became. But while there weren’t any problems, it was still uncomfortable.

What didn’t help matters was that the snowploughs had not been able to clear the parking areas at the ski resorts. Consequently, all of the holidaymakers simply abandoned (I refuse to use the word “parked”, as “parked” they certainly were not) all over the sides of the roads by the ski lifts regardless of the snowploughs and the moving traffic. It was total chaos in quite a few spots and had I been an Andorran policeman, all of the cars would have been towed away.

Thoughtless was not the word. Pig-ignorant and selfish are far better.

Now, how about this for something? That castle perched up there on that rock in the distance is one of the most enigmatic places in the whole of France and was on the top of the list for me to visit. It’s the reason why I’ve come down here.

It’s the Chateau de Montségur and while it can’t match Béziers for being the place of the greatest massacre of French civilians (well, okay, they weren’t French back in the 13th Century), what happened at Montségur is one of the most mysterious and bewildering events ever to occur in what is now France.

Somewhere round about where that monument is (no-one can be exactly sure where the exact spot might have been) on 16th March 1244, approximately 225 Cathars and Cathar sympathisers were put inside a cage and were burnt to death.

And it has to be said that they were quite happy with the idea, to such an extent that about 20 of the victims actually volunteered to go to their doom. One eye-witness report tells of the Cathars singing as the flames were engulfing them.

In brief … "thank goodness" – ed … Catharism was a religious sect that dissented from the teachings of Rome. Cathars were Christians without a doubt, but nevertheless their manner of worship and their beliefs were considered heretical by the Pope.

Catharism was quite strong in this region and some of the wealthiest landowners were Cathars. Consequently, other local notables didn’t need much encoragement to urge the Pope to declare a Crusade against the Cathars.

Béziers was one of the first Cathar towns to fall and it is said that maybe as many as 20,000 people in the town were burned alive.
It was reported that someone asked “who shall we burn? How do we know which ones are Cathars?”
The reply was quite simple. “Burn them all. God will recognise his own”.

But as the noose slowly tightened around the Cathar region, the rock of Montségur was fortified and turned into a refuge of the last resort. Little by little, refugees arrived here bringing with them the religious treasures and relics from other Cathar centres that had succumbed. In 1243 there were 500 people living on the rock, all prepared to make a last stand.

Montségur by this time had already withstood several sieges but in May 1243, with opposition elsewhere being almost totally crushed, the whole might of the Crusade laid siege to the rock and slowly but surely, fought their way up the hill.

By Christmas 1243 it was clear that the garrison could not hold on for much longer and in a daring escape, several of the parfaits, as the Cathar monks and nuns were known, took the entire treasure that had accumulated inside the castle, and disappeared with it to a place of safety. What became of it, no-one ever knew and no trace of it has ever been discovered to this day.

Even more incredibly, one of the escapees managed to return to the castle and he was there on 1st of March 1244 when the castle finally called a truce. The terms of the truce (which was effectively a surrender of course) was that the civilians could leave unmolested, but any parfait (there were said to be about 200 or so in the castle) who failed to renounce his or her vows would be burnt to death.

The defenders asked for a 15-day truce (why, no-one knows) and this was accorded. And on the eve of the final day, an important ceremony of some nature was held within the castle. Later that evening, a few more parfaits slipped out of the castle, taking with them the final objects of importance that had (presumably) been used at the ceremony. And all of that disappeared too, never to resurface.

Next morning, the garrison surrendered. and it is said, quite astonishingly, that not only did no parfait renounce his or her vows, but another 20 or so claimed to have taken the vows in the meantime and demanded to be burnt – a request which of course was granted.

So what was the treasure that was taken away at Christmas 1243?
Where was it taken to?
Why did the garrison demand a 15-day truce?
What was so important about the 15th of March that a truce was requested to cover that day?
What was the ceremony that took place on that day?
What were the objects that were used at the ceremony?
Why were they taken away?
Where were they taken to?
Why were so many people so happy to be taken away to their deaths?

There has been endless speculation about all of this and so many books and novels have been written that they could make a stairway up to the castle. But you can see why Montségur is a place of such interest to so many people.

This is another site in the Ariège that is associated with Cathars. It’s the village of Montaillou.

This is not the original site of the village, though. This is a more recent reincarnation. The village that we are interested in is the one that was in existence at the end of the 13th Century and this is about half a mile away from the present site. And unless you know where to look, you won’t find it at all.

This chapel sitting down in a field dates from the 11th Century and it was at the foot of the chapel that the original village was situated.

And so to set the scene, the fall of Montségur did not quite spell the end of Catharism in France. It lay dormant for probably 50 years but someone discovered several documents setting out the important tenets of Cathar belief, and he resurrected the religion. Montaillou was one of the most important “new Cathar” villages, so much so that a Papal inquisition descended on the place and arrested all of the inhabitants.

They were fully interrogated and their answers were fully recorded. There were indeed parfaits in the village but many escaped. One by one, though, they were tracked down and burnt to death

So while you look at the site of the Medieval village and marvel at how clearly the traces of the roads and habitations show up through the snow after 7 centuries of abandonment and agricultural exploitation, let me tell you a little about what is so interesting about the village.

If you remember my visit to Red Bay in Labrador in 2010

you’ll recall how a chance find in a dusty, forgotten archive led to a discovery of the 2nd-most-important historic site in Canada, something similar has happened here.

While you look at the ruins of the castle of the Counts of Foix, situated on a hill nearby, I’ll tell you that someone by the name of Emmanuel Leroy Ladurie went a-ferretting in some dusty, forgotten archives of one of the local bishops, and actually discovered the verbatim records of the interviews between the members of the Papal Inquisition and the inhabitants of Montaillou.

He wrote a book (a copy of which is in my possession) to summarise the information gleaned from the interviews and it has become one of the most important references to life in rural France at the end of the 13th Century, adding a great deal to whatever was previously known about the subject.

While we are on the subject of castles, this whole area is teeming with them. Not quite one on every hilltop but pretty much near enough.

This is the Chateau de Puivert and was another Cathar stronghold. It fell to the Crusaders after a siege of just three days in November 1210 and the leader of the crusaders, Simon de Montfort, granted it to one of his marshalls.

As an aside, de Montfort was the father of the Simon de Montfort who opposed Henry III of England during the Barons’ Revolt of 1264-67. It was however Montfort père who was responsible for most of the atrocities committed against the Cathars during the early years of the Crusade.

It wasn’t all work either. I’ve seen a couple of really interesting motor vehicles today, highlight of which has to be this German Hanomag Kurier light truck.

Apart from the fact that its engine is a diesel, I know nothing else whatever about it. Hanomag stopped making trucks in 1969 and so this gives me some idea of the date. I wouldn’t have put it many years earlier than that. Still, I’d take it home with me tomorrow given half a chance.

-2

Wednesday 5th March 2014 – THE VIEW FROM MY HOTEL BEDROOM …

… was quite impressive late this afternoon. Not quite right now though because the sun had disappeared behind the mountains but 5 minutes earlier it was warm and gorgeous and I’d been sitting out on the balcony reading a book.

You may be wondering why I’d been doing that but the truth is that I was totally whacked.

I’ve been on the public transport again – something that I seem to be doing more and more as I go about my business. This time though, it’s the bus. Something that I’ve not used since I was in Montreal in August.

Just €1:80 it was from the hotel into Andorra la Vella, the capital, and that’s good value at any price, especially as parking for anything over 2:00 metres (Caliburn is 2:12 metres) costs the proverbial arm and leg. And being on the bus is much less stressful too.

I found the Andorran National Sports stadium too. Andorra were playing Moldova in a friendly so I was determined to go to watch the game but, as you might expect, the best-laid plans of mice and men quite often go gang awa’ when I’m involved. The stadium is undergoing a total rebuilding and the match was being played elsewhere. GRRRRR!

But what a stadium! I’ve seen better stadia than this in the Puy-de-Dôme league back home. I’m not surprised that it’s undergoing rebuilding, but a well-known phrase involving silk purses and sows’ ears springs readily to mind.

Still, my journey wasn’t totally wasted. I spent most of the day wandering around to see what there was to see.

This is part of the old city and you can see how the place must have looked before the money started arriving. It’s a shame that there isn’t a great deal left. Everywhere you go, there are modern buildings and major construction work and it is a little depressing to see history being swept away. Although what seems to be being swept away are buildings from the 1950s and 60s and the first stage of reconstruction.

I found the old Parliament building – replaced by a modern multi-million Euro concrete-and-glass monstrosity three or four years ago. There was a free guided tour on offer too – in English I was told, but it turned out to be a fine example of classical Spanglish renowned the world over.

Apparently there were originally 24 members of the Parliament but this was enlarged to 28 some years ago. Now there is a proposal to enlarge the Parliament to 42 (cynics amongst you can well-speculate upon the reasons) and so a larger building is required.

I’m not quite sure why though – a good weekend’s work with three or four sledgehammers and a couple of acrows and we could soom make room for the required number of seats (if they really do need to enlarge the number of deputies) in the Casa de la Vall but of course, that wouldn’t make a nice shiny new office building though, would it?

I shall have to stop doing this – I’m becoming far too cynical for my own good. But then again, I blame my lifelong employment in the tourist industry and at the seat of European political power.

Next to the Casa de la Vall is the Church of St Esteve. Not Esteban as you might expect but Esteve, for one thing that I learnt here in Andorra la Velle is that the official language of the country is not Spanish but, since 1993, Catalan. No wonder I’ve been having difficulty making myself understood here.

The church dates from the 12th Century but fell victim to what in the UK would have been described as “Victorian Frightfulness”, which is a great shame.

We talked about modern buildings just now, and here’s one. What do you think that this might be?

My first thought was that it was a cathedral designed by someone from the Donald Gibson School of Wanton Vandalism in Coventry, but it is in fact a temple of the modern 21st Century religion – a fitness centre and thermal spa. I did go for a wander around inside but, quite frankly, it left me speechless and, as you know, that’s not something that happens very often.

But occasionally, on my travels I did come across the odd building that was worth photographing, but it wasn’t always possible to find a good viewpoint for a photograph without being cluttered up my modern buildings, road signs and vehicular traffic.

Hence, a photo like this is something of a rarity, which is a shame. But then, I do wonder just how long this building will be here.

Every third shop in Andorra is a tax-free shop, so it seems. And while yesterday we had a photograph of how friendly and accommodating the country is to terrorist bombers, here is a photo of how friendly and accommodating the country is to mass murderers, school assassins and armed robbers. Every weapon you want, and ammunition too, on display in the windows.

But with these tax-free shops, it’s clearly illegal to label the products with their prices. Seeing a priced item in one of these places is a rarity. My Spanish isn’t up to much, my Catalan even less, and so I’m not likely to be able to ask the prices or even to engage the shopkeeper in meaningful conversation, so from a real tourist point of view, these shopkeepers are wasting their time.

Andorra la Vella means “Andorra in the Valley” and so I couldn’t overlook the opportunity of taking a photo of the valley once I had found a suitable viewpoint.

But it wasn’t necessarily the valley that had caught my eye, but if you look at the roof in the very foreground of the photo, you’ll see that it’s equipped with some solar panels. We do occasionally have some sun here in Andorra la Vella – there was a bit today in fact – and it does clear the mountains across the valley.

So there you are.

So no wonder I’m whacked – especially as I also had a busy night too.

While I worked at Shearings in the summer season all those years ago, I had a winter job driving coaches for a local company in Crewe, with right miserable old boss in charge. Last night he had all of his coaches out, taking a huge group of passengers for a weekend to France (I’ve done this).

And all of his coaches too – even down to an early-1960s Harrington-bodied AEC that heaven alone knows where he must have dug that up from.

Anyway, it all descended into chaos. With these 8 or 10 coaches, we each had our passenger list? But we never picked up the people we were supposed to pick up – there were amendments, additions, crossings out until the passenger list was just hopeless. And why we were not setting out intil 14:00 onn Saturday afternoon for our weekend out was something that was totally beyond me.

It did recall a real adventure with this company when I, and another driver, were taking two coaches to Blackpool. We each had our passenger list but when I arrived at the pickups there were very few of my passengers but a load of other people who were waiting for a coach from the company for whom I was working. The other driver had arrived first and just picked up the first passengers that he could, and left me the rest.

“Nothing very important in the significant run of things” I hear you say, but in fact the coaches were doing different optional excursions – hence the two coaches – and this led to all kinds of confusion and recriminations, and the other driver making alternative arrangements with regard to employment opportunities.

-4

Tuesday 4th March 2014 – THIS MORNING TOOK ME BY SURPRISE

As you can see by looking at poor Caliburn, we’ve had a right pasting of snow this morning. It was certainly impressive!

But then again I had an interesting night. A couple of Security guards were accompanying some notable person and how they communicated with each other was by coded flashes of a torch. They thought that it was quite novel but I took the trouble to explain to them that we had been doing that for years – even down to having different lenses (clear, green, red) and even Conan Doyle in the Sherlock Holmes adventures had been doing it. (The Speckled Band as it happens).

So that was enough excitement for the morning. I headed off into the town of La Massana at the bottom of the hill.

There’s a huge ski slope up in the mountains and the lifts start from right in the town. A gondola or two went a-clattering over my head and so I resolved for a closer inspection.

Seems that these days Yours Truly is entitled to a Senior Citizens’ discount but even so, €7:50 was still a lot of money to spend. But anyway, as Martin Luther once said – “hier stehe ich – ich kann nicht anders”.
I was tempted to hire some skis and other kit for a little go but I’m glad that I didn’t because of course it’s Carnaval and school holidays. The slopes were absolutely teeming with kids.

It was freezing cold too and the wind was perishing so after a cup of coffee and a wander around, I came back down again and continued my walk around the town.

But you can see where much of the money in Andorra is coming from these days. Some of the Estate Agents have their adverts written in Russian for their nouveau-riche visitors. And as for the prices, well you and I can forget it. Think of a number, double it, and then add some more on top;

It wasn’t just the house prices in Russian either. We had menus in Russian, notices in Russian, signs in Russian, all that kind of thing. In 25 years the Russians have gone from being oppressed Communists to the worst kind of Capitalists. That’s what a western lifestyle does for you.

The country is, however, very welcoming and even terrorists are made to feel at home and given every assistance possible.

Almost every commercial building has a little place where a terrorist can leave his bomb … “are you sure about this?” – ed … no sending it by post or sticking it in a waste paper bin here.

Good old Andorra!

So after a really good wander around and some falafel with hummus, I went back to my hotel.

That’s it up there – the Hotel Gaspa. And such a nice, warm, friendly place it is too that I’ve decided to stay on here for an extra day. I don’t want to be going far by road in this weather, and at least I’m comfortable here.

-3

Monday 3rd March 2014 – LAST NIGHT’S HOTEL …

… was called the Hotel de la Paix at Oloron Ste Marie, and a good choice it was too.

But I wasn’t alone in my room last night. Frankie Howerd, who as you know is my favourite comedian, came in with the script for his new “Carry On” film, all 391 pages of it, and so much of the night was taken up with reading it.

And I can still remember quite a lot of the script too this morning. I’ll have to sit and write it all down before I forget it. I could be on to something here.

And so with raging toothache yet again, I loaded up Caliburn and sat down to check the route for the next stage of my journey.

But something was clearly not correct as it made no sense at all, and after puzzling over the map for a good 20 minutes I realised that somehow in plotting my route I had turned over two pages of the map at once and I had driven myself up an impasse, as it were.

Consequently I decided to follow the Lady Who Lives In The Satnav for the route today and she took me via Tarbes and Pau and then right across the foothills of the Pyrenees – having me stuck behind a caravanette on a narrow series of lanes for a good 60 km.

Loads of interesting things to see but I wasn’t in any mood to stop and look – this toothache ws driving me mad. I felt like finding a dentist and having allof my teeth taken out – something like back in the 1970s when Malcolm Allison had been appoined team coach at Crystal Palace Football Club. He went to the dentist to have his teeth taken out, and they fitted seats instead.

I finally met up with my route but The Lady etc etc had found me a route that seemed to be much shorter than mine so I followed that and ended up in Spain again.

She brought me to a town called Vielha and it’s a strange situation here because all the rivers flow north into France and we have the headwaters of the River Garonne here. The International boundary is not a watershed as you might think.

And as an aside, here I was stopped for a spot-check by a Spanish Police road patrol.

The Lady Who etc etc had designs on sending me up the Valle de Aran, so it seemed. That’s a huge ski area with loads of faciiities, and the road up there goes through passes at well over 2000 metres. Ahh well – in for a penny, in for a pound.

But it wasn’t to be. About 15kms up the road and well into the snow, we encountered a sign “closed to all vehicles not equipped with chains” – and even local 4×4 drivers were chaining up for the route. They know the area so much better than I do and they’ve been driving in snow for a lot longer than I have, so if they are chaining up, what chance do I have with Caliburn?

The Lady Who Lives etc etc was rather annoyed about me retracing my steps but discretion is the better part of valour.

We carried on south through the enormous Tunnel de Vielha – this road would have been so much fun to drive 30 years ago before the tunnel had been built, I reckon – and this brought me out on the southern side of the Pyrenees and, would you believe, into the sun.

She took me off the main road and we climbed up and up and up to the aptly-named Col de Perves, where Strawberry Moose stopped for a photo opportunity as you might expect. With a name like that, he just had to.

A few flakes of snow fell onto the camera lens, but nothing much to worry about. There was hardly a trace of snow on the ground anywhere around here.

Not so over there, though.

That was where I actually should have been – climbing up out of the Valle de Aran and over the top to the town of Sort which is just on the other side of those mountains over there. This was turning into something of an enormous detour.

And if you thought that the climb up the Col de Perves was exciting, the descent was even more so.

The town of Perves is situated just below the summit and there is a track from there that leads straight downhill – clearly back before the days of the motor-car the peasants were a hardy lot – but for modern vehicles there’s a road something like this – and several good kilometres of it too. Where I’m standing is about half-way down but it’s the first good photo opportunity where there is some kind of parking.

By now though the weather has considerably brightened up and I was really enjoying the day, had it not been for this raging toothache that was putting the dampers on just about everything.

And we hadn’t finished with the mountains yet either.

We ended up climbing up a mountain pass or two via a road that was barely wide enough to take Caliburn and that was exciting when we met a couple of vehicles coming the other way. But once we arrived in Sort (about two hours after the time I should have been here) the rest of the journey was comparatively straightforward. A couple of mountain passes to be sure, but we are on N-roads, the equivelent of A-roads in the UK and I arrived at my ultimate destination, the little country of Andorra, without further ado.

But this toothache is driving me berserk and I went straight to bed, where I promptly crashed out, and that was that.

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Sunday 2nd March 2014 – I CAN’T LEAVE …

… Hendaye without showing you a photo of the beach here.

It stretches for over three kilometres, and even in the dismal weather that we were having this morning, it looked quite impressive. It really is a shame that the weather has conspired to defeat me on this little journey. Hendaye has always been a place high on my list to visit, and I can’t believe that the weather has let me down.

The town might not be up to too much but the seafront is certainly from another time – the Belle Epoque of the period from 1890 to 1929 (minus the war of course) as you can tell from some of the magnificent buildings here.

It costs a king’s ransom to rent a flat there as you might expect but, surprisingly, the restaurant is quite “democratic” in its prices and the vegetable risotto that I had the first night here was excellent, in both quality and price.

This is ice-station Zebra where I stayed for a couple of nights.

They had fixed the hot water by this morning but not the heating, but I’m not complaining. All hotels are under repair during the close season – it’s part of the fun of travelling at this time of year – and they made me a handsome reduction on the price as well as including the (copious) breakfast free of charge to make up for the inconvenience. Chapeau to the Hotel Bellevue!

Diesel is about 10 cents a litre cheaper in Spain and so Caliburn, Strawberry Moose
and I crossed the border and fuelled up.

From there we followed the border for quite a way – but on the Spanish side.

Neither Caliburn nor Strawberry Moose have been to Spain before and so here’s a photo of Caliburn to prove that he was here. Strawberry Moose will be having a better photo-opportunity in due course.

Watch this space.

But there’s all kinds of interesting things to see at the roadside. Here in a pub car park (or what passes as a pub in Spain) there was a steam locomotive.

Built by the Lokomotivbau Karl Marx in Babelsberg (East Germany, of course), this is build number 16005 of 1950 and is probably one of the 4000-odd narrow-gauge steam locomotives built for the East German narrow-gauge railway network.

What it’s doing here is a mystery but one thing is certain in that it won’t be going anywhere else. It’s in a dreadful state.

We climbed back into France over the Col d’Ispeguy, all 672 metres of it. This was the scene of a battle between the French and the Spanish in June 1794 and it’s clearly a sensitive military area as even today there are the remains of a great number of military defences guarding the Pass.

These though are likely to be something to do with World War II. Spain was neutral during the War but Hitler had asked Franco for permission to send an army across Spain to besiege Gibraltar. This was a logical step, as it would have closed the Mediterranean to British forces and led to the collapse of the British position in North Africa.

Franco refused and, apparently, gave Hitler such a verbal mauling that Hitler emerged shaken from the intervie and declared that he would rather go to have all of his teeth pulled at the dentist that have another discussion with Franco. Franco would be well-aware of the importance of Gibraltar, convinced that the Germans would invade Spain in order to capture the Rock, and doubless ordered these fortifications to be built.

Hitler’s failure to force the issue with Franco was the first nail in the Nazi coffin, in my opinion.

But as I have said before, the power of vehicle advertising is teemendous. Here I was sitting at the top of the Col d’Ispeguy quietly eating my butty and admiring the view into France when there was a knock on the window of Caliburn. As a result I ended up doing a site visit for a French guy in the area.

It will come to nothing as he’s at the bottom of a steep-sided valley and won’t have the sun for more than 4 or 5 hours per day in summer, but nevertheless, it just shows …

Next part of the route was to take me from Ahaxe to Tardets on a road that is something of a roller-coaster of half a dozen mountain passes of well over 1000 metres – up there somewhere.

However on turning off onto the lane there was a large gate, all padlocked off, with “road closed” all over it. Not that I’m surpised. It’s been raining for much of the day and it’s quite cold so snow up there is an odds-on certainty. And it’s not as if it’s a main road – or even a minor road, come to that.

I ended up having to come by the Col d’Osquich, Mauléon, Cheraute (where I was lucky enough to catch an exciting football match) and Barcus, and now I’m cosily esconced in a hotel opposite the railway station at Oloron Sainte-Marie where I’ll be spending the night.

It’s nice and warm here and the shower works. Just what the doctor ordered.

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Friday 28th February 2014 – I’VE ARRIVED …

… at my destination for this weekend. I’m in Hendaye, which is at the extreme south-east of France and just across the river is the Basque coast of Northern Spain. And here I’ll be until Sunday night.

This was my hotel from last night – the Hotel Belle Vue. I was in the annexe in the foreground – that’s where the cheaper rooms are and, of course, I’m on the budget plan. But nevertheless, I’m not faulting for a minute the value for money. I was quite happy with this.

No complaints about the breakfast either, and with the kettle in the room I was even able to make a flask of coffee.

While I was on my travels last night, prowling around the town, I came across this sign. I had to return to photograph it this morning before I left.

If it shows anything at all, it shows that money spent on a good native-speaking translator is never wasted, no matter how good you think that your on translation might be. Although, I must admit that if the boot were on the other foot I would be happy with a sign like this.

I was in Hossegor later this morning to carry out an errand. My friend Marianne wrote a book on Pionsat and this was illustrated with photos from a bygone age.

One photo shows a man leaving the Pionsat Post Office and someone who saw the photo said “that’s Richardy, a garage proprietor from Hossegor who had a summer home in Pionsat”.

It was always on Marianne’s list to go to Hossegor and see if she could find the garage but seeing as how I was in the area I went instead. And after multiple enquiries at the Town Hall, the Police Station, the Tourist Information and the Pensioners’ Club, people think that this supermarket might have been it.

It’ll be confirmed for me on Monday.

From there, I followed the coast down to Hendaye and the weather deteriorated as I drove south. Sitting having my lunch at the port of Bayonne watching the Arklow Fortune, newly arrived from Ijmuiden, something of a storm had sprung up.

The Arklow Fortune is a rare breed of vessel by the way – she’s a freighter flying the Irish flag so it seems, and that’s not something that you see every day.

By the time I reached St Jean de Luz near Biarritz, the weather had turned decidedly nasty as you can see. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen it as bad as this. Violent was not the word.

Here in Hendaye, the seafront is closed off as they are expecting the weather to deteriorate further over the weekend with a climax on Monday evening.

But I have a hotel 10 minutes from the seafront overlooking the river that separates Hendaye from Spain. It’s basic and in the throes of being renovated, but they’ve done me a good deal on the price of a room and including breakfast, even if there is no heating yet and the room needs finishing. As I said, I’m on the budget package.

So after my excellent vegetable risotto, I’m off to bed for an early night.

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EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality