Pyrenees : Part 25 - Day 12 Morning : Chateau de Peyrepertuse

Day 12 Morning of Pyrenees Drive

Here is a summary of what is spent on Day 12.

Route: Puivert -- Chateau de Peyrepertuse

Must-Incur Costs :

(1) Entrance fee to Chateau de Peyrepertuse - EUR6.50
(2) Audio guide at Chateau de Peyrepertuse - EUR2 (optional)

The Story

120915 : The night before, we had stayed in Puivert. We were just an hour drive from Peyrepertuse. Chateau de Peyrepertuse is the reason we did the Pyrenees trip. Today post is written by Prof Sweet Tooth himself.

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Hie, it is Prof. Sweet Tooth!

The reason why this trip is performed by me and the beautiful co-driver shown in previous photos, is actually because of a book. One day several years ago, I was turning the pages of a book that was a combination of reports from journeys in France mixed with recipes of French food, often the actual dish for each province of the country. The book was written by the Swedish couple Siv & Key L Nilsson in the 1970-ies. One chapter reported their expedition to a ruin called Le Château de Peyrepertuse, which is located on a mountain in the area of the Pyrenées. As I have been driving to Paris from Sweden a couple of times a decade ago, but not further than that - and always feeling homesick - I said to myself I would like to make the challenge of driving all that way to Peyrepertuse. And back home again.

Then I met my old penpal - the lovely co-driver I just mentioned - last year. Instead of her coming to Sweden and watch the gloomy rainweather, I suggested that we together should do the trip that I have been longing for so long. Actually, I was on my way to the Pyrenees a few years ago, but I had an accident the week before my supposed travel. If that travel had been made, I would not had this co-driver with me, and you wouldn't be able to read her reports from this trip today. It would just have been me driving 4-5 days to Peyrepertuse, with maybe 5-10 photos (most on cars), getting homesick and driving back again the same evening...

So not much of what have been written on this blog about of this trip would had happened with me alone, and as Peyrepertouse was my Mekka in this case, I had pretty high expectations. Mostly because of how Siv Nilsson described the place. She said it is easy to get dizzy because of the paths are close to the edge of the mountain. And during thunderstorms, the castle is closed from visitors because of the danger.

Well, we missed the thunderstorm by perhaps 10-12 hours. Sure it must have been a grand spectacle from the top of the mountain were this fortress of unknown age is located. From archaeological studies we know that the Romans were in this area before our era. This castle is known in documents from 806, but the location must have been used long time before that if the Romans were roaming here...

We arrived here in the mid of the day and felt that the surroundings suddenly had a Spanish character, particularly the nice road uphill. There are some hike trails crossing the landscape here too. No thunderstorms, and we got our tickets for the entrance. As I suspected that my co-driver didn't want to hear my factual or non-factual expression of what we was about to see on a place I have never visited before (of course I could make up any theory on every asked object, free of charge), we hired two audio guides. Already at the first position, I realised I had prefered my own interpretation of what the ruin was offering to our curious eyes. The audio guide was in English, but performed with the accent of a Frenchman. A drunkard Frenchman. You could really hear in his voice that he had serious problems with his hygiene too...! And instead of a museum guide, this was more of an adventure history. Maybe amusing for young teenagers... no, for kids in the age of 9-12 perhaps.

  

After the entrance building, the visitor has to walk through a small forest that surely gives an atmosphere while "climbing" to the more historical correctly entrance of the castle. Sadly enough the atmosphere was also contained with the smell of pee. Well, were there is a hidden corner, there is an opportunity for a leak, obviously. Beyond the bushes growing on the edge of the cliff, we could see the other mountains rise up to the sky. If this track had continued for several more kilometers up and down, I would still enjoy it, particularly when the breeze blew away the odour of old pee.

When walking at such places like this, I like to think how it must have been to live and work here during the era when this fortress was in service. It served both the Catalan and the French owners well, because it seems that no enemy could capture this castle. It is hard even for an innocent tourist to walk upstairs without losing the breathe too...! How difficult wouldn't it be if someone was shooting arrows against you from the top of the wall and the loopholes!

Up at the walls of the this old fortification, looking down on the open landscape, one can see that the owner of this fortress has all the advantages when it comes to defence. The sight is amazing; to the west I could see the mystical mountain of the Bugarach, which we passed by since our night in the village of Puivert. (I hope we can be able to explore that mountain in a future trip.) To the east, the eye can follow the same valleys as the slow river of Verdouble, and see the small town of Paziols, which is together with next small town Tuchan safely watched by the guards on Château d'Aguilar in the old days when this was the French border to Catalonia/Spain. To the south, and very clear to the eye, is the Château de Quéribus. If reading the history books, one could imagine the army with one kind of believers marching by, to hunt the other kind of armed believers, namely the Cathars that had that castle before they vanished from the area. But back to our ruins now.

It is pretty natural to think about wars when one look out from the loopholes, several hundred meters above the ground under the Château de Peyrepetuse. But there have been more peace than actual wars here, and what has been around all the time is the agricultural activities, which is still alive. And instead of bloodthirsty warriors, we see a lot of hikers doing their way along the trodden paths, perhaps observing the farmers out in the fields or the yards.

Inside the castle area, there is only the size and the distance between the big walls that could help the visitor to imagine how this place once upon a time must had household a big amount of people, mostly soldiers. But nothing is left of the old infrastructure to give us a lead on how the life was inside here; all walls and floors are clean from old relics, and one has to look for the into the stone cut holdings for next floor. All of the interior is gone. So a visit to Peyrepertuse leaves a lot for the fantasy when reconstructing the life on this fort, hundreds meters above the head of the peasants down in the valley.

My imagination flipped a bit when I was observing the hole - covered by an iron fence - in the ground near the highest part of the fortress. The drunken Frenchman in the audiobook says that the hole don't lead anywere. So? Sure? The 11 years old kid inside me wants to confirm this statement with his own eyes, or - preferably - explore the secret tunnel that the present owner of the fortress want to keep hidden. Does the tunnel leads to a cave with all the treasures that was held safe here in old times...? Or a chamber filled with antique weapons? Or...? No, the boy has to grow up now.

 

Even though the history can be felt inside the Château de Peyrepertuse, the most value here is the wonderful view over the landscape from the top of the stone walls. Good weather brings the value to this visit. At the end of our stay up in the chilling wind, we could observe that the magnificiant weather over the Pyrenées wouldn't stay long, and we returned safe back to the car, and drove to what we would get to know as one of this seasons most heavy rain storms in southern France. But first I leave to my co-drive to tell about another exciting place that appeared without our meticulous research when we begun planning this trip a year ago.

Best regards,

Prof. Sweet Tooth Esq.