Land of the Cathars

Despite my raving about the old cité and château at Carcassonne, today we had an even better day driving south and exploring some other villages and Cathar châteaux, the best being Peyrepetuse.

There was a precipitous uphill drive followed by an even more hairy 15 min walk up to the ruins, involving scrambling over rocks in a very strong but hot wind. We watched vultures enjoying the thermals and at times felt we might be blown off to join them. That the Cathars managed to construct a fortress up there is just incredible and the views from all sides were stupendous.

Before reaching Peyrepertuse, we lunched below in Rouffiac from where we could see not only the château but also perfect lenticular clouds forming. Sadly my photo isn't as good as I'd like but I'll post it as an extra, as well as a standard shot of the castle.

We also visited Alet les bains, which was very pretty with narrow winding streets, timber framed buildings, old lanterns, hanging baskets, stone archways and a ruined abbey.

Next up was Rennes-le-chateau, village of many a superstition and conspiracy. (It's included in the story of The Holy Grail, The Divinci Code & Sepulche). It was home to a priest who presumably discovered some treasure as he became mysteriously rich overnight. Amongst other things he restored the church, choosing to include a large grotesque statue of the devil. Next door, a museum purports to display the skull of Mary Magdalene who supposedly lived there with Jesus... it was Jesus' twin brother who died on the cross!!!! All around, the windows of local houses were festooned with amulets and charms to ward off evil spirits. It was a very unusual village that's for sure.

Finally we stopped at Cucugnan for a view of Château de Quéribus and were wowed by the layered view that is my main blip.