Gavarnie, Cirque and Cascade

Next stop was Gavarnie, site of a great cirque and Europe's highest waterfall. We have now seen all of the 3 big Gs: Giverny, Gavrinus, and Gavarnie, representing our interests in arts and humanities, archaeology and history, and mountains.

One of the aires at Gavarnie; not a place for solitude

Environs; very dry, warm, reminiscent of the southern
Rockies, except not so high

We decided to brave the heat and hike out
for views of the cirque and cascade; here is
randonneur Vicki

Looking down at the town of Gavarnie

The cirque

The cascade

Today's flower, with bonus bug

Another flower

More environs

Part of the hike was on the Santiago trail, so we hope to get
another plenary dispensation or at least some time off for
good behavior in Purgatory...

The view from town

On To The Pyrenees

Fortified by Jane and Gordon's hospitality and advice on touring in these parts, we set forth on the last leg of our summer itinerary, the Pyrenees and northern Spain's coast, as far west as the Picos de Europa. As with the trip generally this summer, it was in part new territory for us, and in part familiar territory, with new sights and undertakings.

Driving up the road to the Col du Aspin in the French
Pyrenees

A bit more of the road, narrow, high, and very crowded with
tourists

At the Col d' Aspin

In a valley beyond, scores of RVs parked all over the
meadow

The big mountain in these parts is the Pic du Midi, radio
tower and all, here framed by cows and tipis

The road is/was a major leg of the Tour de France and so is
covered by bicyclistes and messages to bicyclistes

And RVs and other things

Monument to bicyclistes: ride naked!

We press on...

Bastides

From Albi we drove on, generally south and west, for a visit with our new-found camping friends, Jane and Gordon, and a stay with them at their home in Cadeilhan. On the way we passed several bastides--fortified villages--and visited Puycelsi. Dating from Eleanor of Aquitaine, if not before, the English pressed their claims in western France, and for centuries it was a contested country. For a village or town to survive, it had to be fortified. Thus, bastides, the fortified towns that dot the countryside here.

Cordes sur Ciel

Bruniquel

Puycelsi

Walls of Puycelsi

Wall and tower

A main street

The usual half-timbered...

And bricked

Another street

Outside the church

Interior

Albi Cathedral, 2

More looks at St. Cecelia's in Albi...

Closer-up on the screen

More

Constantine and Charlemagne preside over
the choir; divine right of kings, don't you
know?

In one of the chapels, a beautiful model of how they put
this baby together

In another, St. Helen (Constantine's mom)
and the finding of the true cross

Outside, the adjoining bishop's palace

Largest hydrangea bloom I have seen--more than a foot
across

And the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum, which we decided to
save for next time; ask me how Toulouse-Lautrec and
adjusting the valves on a 911 are related...

Moon and tower

Albi Cathedral, 1

The aire in Albi is a large central parking lot just steps from the church. We arrived in the early evening and there already were a couple dozen other campers there. We saw the cathedral--one we'd not heard of before--the next morning and were impressed with a number of its facets.

St. Cecelia's, Albi, from the east; it looks much more like a
fortress on the outside, a huge brick fortress

Sculpture of St. Cecelia herself, in the familiar pose we first
saw in her house--and that of her husband St. Valerian--the
first Christian church in Rome

On the inside, the church is totally Gothic; and here, looking
from the crossing back to the west end, you can see three of
the church's most interesting features: the west (traditional)
entrance now a chapel (you enter from the south or north);
the organ, largest classical organ in France; and the last
judgment fresco, the largest of all Medieval last judgments

A few looks at this monumental last judgment

All that is known of the artist(s) is that they were 15th

century Florentines

Specimen lurid detail

Life-sized too

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this last judgment is
Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit all were removed to make way
for the west chapel and the organ; unthinkable, but true;
above is a rendering of what the last judgment looked like
originally

Beautiful ceiling, rib vaulting

And now, looking from the last judgment
back east to this church's other most
remarkable feature: the only remaining
intact rood screen in France, a beautifully
carved and massive structure; such screens
separated the priests and their mysteries
from the common faithful; they were
generally removed in the Counter
Reformation, but Albi's has survived

Lastours, Cathar Castle

We wanted to take in another Cathar castle in the area, and one of the best, Lastours, was nearby. We drove up to the village, hiked up to the entrance area/museum, and then, considering the steepness of the admission fee, that of the hike up to the castle, and the 97 degree temperatures, decided to down a pastry, take a few pix and press on, across the mountains, to our next major stop, the cathedral at Albi, the town that gave its name to the Albigensian heresy and the Albigensian "crusade" (read: genocide?). We had already seen Peyrepertuse and Queribus in 2010. The Cathars, aka Albigensians, were a Medieval Christian off-shoot movement, mostly in southwestern France. Their tenets sound benign enough today, but they ran afoul of Church and King, mainly because of their notion that material things were bad/spiritual things good (the Church, with its massive holdings of land and wealth really liked material things in the Middle Ages and later), and particularly their notion that a priesthood was unnecessary for human/divine relations. This latter really troubled the Church, and, with the assistance of the King(s), the Cathars were pretty much wiped out. Scores of thousands brutally murdered. Ad majorem Dei gloriam. The castles are about all that remain.

Land of the Cathars

Lastours

Up closer

From Lastours village