Limoux France, 12 - 28 April 2012

“We have four grandparents.” said Atticus, “what if we had six Grandparents, or even eight!”. His second set of grandparents, Herb and Mary Auerbach, had just arrived from a visit to Lisbon to spend the rest of the week with us in Limoux. Everyone was benefitting from the visit; the grandparents were enjoying spending time with their grandchildren, the parents, Erica and Andrew, had extra help amusing their children, and Atticus and Roman always had someone to read stories to them, play football soccer, go for walks and generally pay them all the attention they wanted. What could be better?

Erica had found a Pony Camp near Limoux and signed up Atticus and Roman for two morning sessions. There was also an Auberge Fermière on the same property. Farmers in France have joined an organization offering tourists the opportunity to stay at a working farm and enjoy gourmet quality meals featuring produce grown on their property. We reserved for lunch after Pony Camp the first day the boys attended.

We arrived at noon to hear all about the boys' morning. They had groomed their ponies, had riding lessons in a ring, and taken a short ride in the rest of the property. Their favourite activity was a game where they had to dismount their pony when their pony’s name was called and get up on another pony. After we were introduced to the pony assigned to them that day, we all trooped into the dining room to enjoy our multi course lunch. It was well cooked and delicious.

On the way back to Limoux we stopped in Saint Hilaire to visit the Abbey. The Abbey goes back to Roman times and reached its height in the Middle Ages. More than a century before Champagne was introduced in France, the Benedictine monks in the Abbey made the first effervescent wine in the world, now known as Blanquette de Limoux. It is even said that Champagne used the methods of the monks to make their famous drink. We had been enjoying a glass of Blanquette as a pre-dinner drink and as a dessert wine, and we were all interested in its history. The abbey is no longer in operation as a monastery but it has been restored and was open for visits by tourists. Besides reading the history of Blanquette production, we visited the rooms assigned to the Abbot, which were much more comfortable than the rooms for the other monks. The Coats of Arms of each Abbot was painted on the walls of the Abbot’s reception room. Ray was pleased to find that one Abbot was a member of the Raymond family.

You cannot visit the Languedoc region of France without visiting the ancient walled city of Carcassonne, first established as a settlement by the Romans.  Kate Mosse’s 2006 novel, Labyrinth, renewed interest in the violent history of the Cathars. Popular from the 11th to the 13th century in Southern France, this breakaway Christian movement was extinguished in the early decades of the thirteenth century, when the Cathars were persecuted and massacred under the Inquisition. Completely restored in the mid-19th C, it is now a UNESCO World Site.

Atticus and Roman looked forward to seeing a real castle, just like their toy wooden version they liked to play with at home. They had never imagined a castle as large as Carcassone. They immediately ran up the stairs leading to the walls and took turns playing the role of the King and his Guard, scurrying along the walls and peaking around corners, looking for enemies to shoot. When we found the gate leading inside they were amazed that there was a town inside the walls, but they wanted to visit the castle.

That would have to wait until we located their parents and Grandpa Herb and Grandma Mary. The others had driven to a different parking lot entrance and it took quite a while to track them down in the narrow streets, crowded with tourists. It was time for lunch. We managed to find a pleasant restaurant with enough room inside for the eight of us. We were sheltered from a sudden rain shower that fortunately finished by the time we were ready to explore the castle. There was a good film portraying the campaign against the Cathars, ramparts to walk, and artifacts to see. Ray and I enjoyed our visit just as much as we had on our previous trip to Limoux, more than ten years ago. Roman came away with a new, wooden dagger to add to his castle toys.

The Auerbachs and Erica and Andrew were scheduled to fly back to Paris on Saturday. Ray and I left everyone packing up while we went to meet with Chris Georgas. Ray and I had stayed in La Monastère, more than  ten years ago to enjoy a week of bicycling around Limoux and visiting the Cathar Castles. Chris is very popular with his tours, centered at La Monastère, for small groups of bicyclists, artists, walkers and even cooks. Chris has renovated and now rents out three other houses to independent travellers, one of which, Kiwi House, we were renting for the next week with Atticus and Roman. 

We returned to Les Laurier to find Erica and Andrew gone. Erica had cut her thumb when one of the wine glasses she was washing in the kitchen sink broke. They thought the cut was deep enough to require stitches and couldn't wait until they returned to Paris. Andrew had driven Erica to the nearest hospital in Carcassonne, 30 km away. The plane was not scheduled to leave Toulouse until later in the afternoon, so there was still time for us to help get everyone ready to leave. Ray and I finished packing up our own and everyone else’s suitcases and checked that we had left nothing behind. Andrew called and said he was on his way back to retrieve his parents but they would have to stop at the hospital on the way to Toulouse to pick up Erica. We learned later that Erica had four stitches in her thumb but that there was no damage to tendons or muscle tissue. She will be left only with a scar as a reminder of our Limoux visit.

How did we spend the next week with our grandsons? We kept them busy following suggested walks up the hills in neighbouring villages, swimming in the local indoor pool, playing football soccer in village parks and in the town plaza, just a block from Kiwi House. The boys had fun on the walks picking spring flowers for a bouquet, investigating ant holes and other insects, and when we had reached the top of a hill, racing each other down to the bottom.

One walk, starting in the village of Gardie, ended up being a little longer than we had planned. On cresting a hill, I suggested we head for the village we could see in the distance at the bottom of the hill instead of retracing our steps back to the car. The village turned out not to be Gardie. We discovered we were in tiny Villar St Anselme, another 3.2 km from Gardie; so much for my sense of direction. Ray calls this "just discovering new territory". He volunteered to walk back uphill to get the car while the boys and I amused ourselves in a small park surrounding the village church. It was a nice day and the boys weren’t disturbed.

Rather than return to our house for sandwiches after two of our walks, we took the boys to our favourite restaurant in Limoux. Café de la Gare was termed a working man’s restaurant and the best value in town according to the list of recommended restaurants left by the owners of Les Lauriers. We had eaten there the first Friday before the rest of the family arrived and were impressed with our meal. We were quite late arriving for lunch but that didn’t matter. Both our meals with the children were excellent. The boys were especially impressed with the dessert selections, including an tasty fresh strawberry pie. Atticus and Roman happily accepted chocolate Easter eggs from our hostess as an after lunch treat.

Our hostess, a middle-aged woman, couldn’t have been friendlier. She must be part of the reason the same people eat lunch there day after day. A well-dressed, very elderly couple were obvious regulars. Special treatment for them included cutting meat that arthritic old hands could no longer manage and helping the couple into their car when they left each day.

A trip to the Dinosauria Museum in nearby Esperaza sounded like a good place to visit with the boys. There have been extensive digs in the vicinity, uncovering dinosaur bones from millions of years ago. The museum has well displayed exhibits of fossils found in the area as well as huge reconstructions of several dinosaurs. When we bought our admission tickets, the attendant warned that the children’s area, in a separate room, contained a dinosaur that might be too scary for young children. Roman was a bit leery of facing this potential scary beast, but Atticus wanted to give it a try. The exhibit was on the exit route, so the boys settled in to watch dinosaur cartoons about the life of the retiles in that era. Finally both boys could wait no longer. They made their way to the exit and peaked around the corner. A huge Tyrannosaurus Rex let out a roar and moved threateningly. That was enough for Roman. He returned to the safer cartoons. Atticus gave it another try and eventually enjoyed being scared enough to make repeat forays past the mechanical beast. Roman left by the safer entrance door.

On a hilltop close to Esperaza, sits the tiny walled village of Rennes-le-Château. A controversy centered on the wealth of a 19^th C village priest, Bérenger Saunière has brought many tourists to the village. Saunière  spent great sums of money building a tower on the edge of a cliff, dedicated to Mary Magdalene as well as refurbishing the local church. Some people believed he must have found buried treasure but In 1910-1911 he was found guilty of selling masses for large sums of money and was suspended from the priesthood. Dan Brown's novel, The Da Vinci Code, renewed interest in the existence of hidden treasure and people come every year to visit the pretty village and find out if the rumours of treasure could be true. After lunch at a restaurant next to the Dinosauria, we drove the switchbacks up to the village to have a look ourselves. The boys weren’t overly impressed with the history or the beautiful view, but they loved walking along a wall at the edge of the cliff and following a trail circling the walls of the town.  One of the most interesting sights for us was inside the small church.  A threatening statue of a devil holds up the Holy Water basin. Someone, still unknown, even stole the head of the devil and a replacement had to be made.

 Chateau d’Arques sounded worth a visit, especially to see the reported dungeon, just a short drive from Limoux. It turns out the Dungeon really means a Keep, so we didn't see any scary prison rooms. We did see a high, square fortified tower with four turrets. It was built after Albigensian Crusade of the 13th century on lands given to Pierre de Voisins, one of Simon de Montfort's lieutenants, who helped defeat the Cathars. I hurried to keep up with the boys who raced up the circular stairs in one of the corner towers, which Roman informed me were called “escalier tournant”, a much more melodic name. We peaked out at each landing window to wave to Ray, who was still exploring the walled grounds.

That was the end of our Cathar country exploration. I am not sure how much the boys will remember of the history, but we all had fun exploring the ruins and countryside.