Foix Area, August 17-20, 2010
TUESDAY, August 17: Tarascon, Ussat, Miglos, Montreal de Sos
I travelled south along the Ariege River on N20, the scenery more stunning with each mile closer to the Pyrenees. My first stop was in the adjacent towns of Tarascon and Ussat, both with Cathar connections; but more germane to my book research, it was here my protagonist launched his protracted search for “the Grail” in the numerous caves perched on the cliffs surrounding the towns. From his writings I’d gleaned specific place names and I’d found a few related photographs on the web. The precise building he had briefly owned, the Hotel De Marrionier, I knew from a web article to have been torn down some years back. Still, I questioned the clerk in the Tourism Bureau and other locals until I had a reasonable guess as to its location: a vacant lot adjacent to the hot springs resort, an area I then videoed for later scrutiny. I gathered details on available tours to the area caves but reserved that adventure for later in the week.
Most sites I’d visited so far in Cathar country were well known and documented; but there was only skimpy information about the places where I now headed, well into the Pyrenees with the maps showing only thin lines for roads—dirt, for all I knew—that squiggled, then terminated at an impassable point, I presumed. I was playing hunches formed from fragments too arcane to get into here that up here was an overlooked piece of the mystery that it was my destiny to discover.
Heading southwest from Tarascon, I left the decent two-lane highway to wind into the hills above the town of Miglos where stood a storied but crumbling and fenced chateau of the same name, a rare remnant of the period that was connected to both the Cathars and the Knights Templar. A Cathar stronghold, one of the last and too remote to have been captured, it was protected by a templar commandery in Capoulet et Junac in the Vicdessos valley just below it. Also notable is how close Miglos is to Montsegur although a rugged mountain range separates them. It makes sense to posit that the four escapees from Montsegur with knowledge of the mountain trails would have crossed over to Miglos, especially if they could count on Templar protection.
From the chateau I headed back down, checked quickly through the town of Capoulet et Junac, then drove even deeper into the mountains, this time headed for Montreal de Sos, site of another chateau with a similar history to that of Miglos but even more remote, literally at the very end of the road.
From what I’d read I expected to find very little remaining at this site. Au contraire. Well off the beaten track and a challenge to reach, it was only partially excavated but with more than enough to stir the interest of an archeologist, not to mention the imagination of a novelist. It took plenty of leg muscle to climb the trail snaking up the cliff and some bravado to navigate the sections on ledges and through caves. (Click this LINK for my You Tube video of this adventure, including a section I shot passing through a cave.) Nevertheless, when I finally came down at the end of that long day, I had that unique sense, experienced so strongly on the seawall parapet in Istanbul , that I’d been to the place, or one of the places, I’d been drawn to France to find. Some precious “grail” item, if not the Grail itself, had been in Montreal de Sos and perhaps was still there.
WEDNESDAY, August 18: Foix
This morning I wrote in my journal: “Plan to write for at least an hour here and then go into town, get the laundry done, see the chateau and checkout the bookstores and perhaps the library. Have to decide the rest of the week here in Foix, especially if I want to head out early for Saint Bertrand and Lourdes tomorrow and then perhaps the caves in Tarascon on Friday.” As slow a day as I was willing to allow myself in the midst of such riches.
Turned out there was only one Laundromat, and it had a line of people with several bags apiece. So, essentials would be hand washed and the rest not-so-clean for a few more days. In another time and place the Castle of Foix, seat of Count Raymond Roger, who defended the Cathars during the Albigensian crusade and so lost his lands to the notorious de Montfort, would have thrilled me like a kid first going to Disneyland; but after that very warm day I had to note about exploring its towers and ramparts that I was “a bit of overdone on forts and castles, at least for that time being.” With the temperature in the 90’s, I also petered out on the book-finding mission and called it quits early. A day I’d call a wash, even without getting the wash done.
THURSDAY, August 19: St. Bertrand-des-Comminges, Lourdes
As estimated by Google maps, the round trip from Foix to Lourdes and back was just over 200 miles, a snap, I thought, as I covered as much as 2500 miles in three days several times. But that was across the flats of the central US, and this trip was through mountainous terrain whose history and natural beauty tempted me like Sirens at every turn. Although well west of Cathar country, St. Bertrand-des-Comminges and its Gothic cathedral intersected with the Grail legends in several instances; the high Pyrenean passes with their summer grazing pastures were integral to my novel; and my protagonist, hardly Catholic, was sufficiently intrigued with the apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the village of Lourdes that he visited there and wrote about it in one of his books.
Of the famous shrine, I noted in my journal: “Through no fault, I was late in getting into Lourdes. Thought I was taking the short way but it turned out to be all day up and down in the dramatically high Pyrenees. I got into the town and it was thronged; actually drove down one street where it was hard not to run over some of the people in wheelchairs crowding the streets. Despite trying, not a single place to park within the city limits and about all I got to see was the basilica from a distance. Knew it was a long trip home and I was running out of internal gas—one of those nights that redefined the word ‘tired’—so I had to accept that what I got was all that was meant to be for that aspect of the visit. I made the attempt, I did think of Mom [who had a fervent devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes, and it was barely a week before her death as it turned out] there, and that had to be good enough.”
FRIDAY, August 20: Prehistoric Art Park, Caves of the Lombrives
I’d left my last full day in the Foix area for the tour of the Cave of the Lombrives, where my novel’s protagonist had allegedly made his most significant discoveries. It was again a hot morning and it never occurred to me, before I started the very long climb to the cave’s mouth (I could have taken the tram), that it would be cold in the cave. The guide took a look at my minimal clothing and warned me that I might regret going in without some outerwear.
Fortunately, I heeded his advice, rescheduled for the following morning, and spent the time instead visiting the nearby Prehistoric Art Park, devoted to cave paintings and the life of the area’s Magdalenian primitives. As admission is rightly limited for the preservation of the actual caves containing the ancient paintings, the park serves well to demonstrate the world of the decorated caves through photographs, videos and reconstructions.
Then on Saturday, on my way south to Ax-les-Thermes, my stay in the Foix area concluded, this time with a warm jacket that was indeed needed, I took the tour of the Cave of the Lombrives, Touted as the largest cave in Europe, it includes a gallery with over 1,000 pillars as well as other chambers featuring giant cauldrons, shafts, chimneys, cave pearls and crystals. One particularly vast chamber, dramatically lit with spotlights, is called The Cathedral. Two hours only provided limited impressions to draw on when writing, but if it can be said that a single picture is worth a thousand words, it can also be claimed that a single direct experience is worth a thousand pictures.
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