Yesterday we got up early and headed into the town of Mirepoix (pronounced meer- pwa), at the foot of the Pyrenees, to explore the markets. This medieval town was transformed into a huge market place and we had a couple of fun hours looking around at the gorgeous food (check out the nougat!), toys and clothes.
We eventually found a little cafe for lunch where we had plates of charcuterie, fromage, foie gras, pate and baguette(!) and a glass of beer.
From there we drove the historic castle of Montsegur. Both Mirepoix and Montsegur featured prominently in the Cathar crusades but Montsegur had a particularly interesting history. The story goes that local Cathars became aware of the rising threat from Simon de Montford and the Catholic Church and asked the local leader to restore Montsegur castle for them (apparantly it was a ruin in the late 1100s). The local leader did this willingly and within 12 months the castle was restored, and around 200 local Cathars and 50 knights and their families holed themselves up within the castle walls. Eventually Simon de Montford and his troops arrived at the castle (look at it! Can you imagine seeing this castle and thinking, “yeah let’s lay siege to this thing”?) and spent 10 months trying to break in.
Eventually they were successful and 200 inhabitants refused to renounce their faith so they made a huge pyre at the bottom of the hill and burnt them all. It makes me feel sick even writing about it. I cannot fathom the bravery of the Cathars. If it was me, I would tell them anything they wanted to hear to avoid burning.
It was getting late and while we were considering walking to the top, we thought we might just squeeze in one more activity. Our next stop was the Prehistoric park at the bottom of the Pyrenees. Cecily and I were very keen to do the archeological workshop so the adults split up from the kids for 40 minutes or so. Inside the space, the ground was divided into multiple squares divided by string.
At first glance it looked like a random pile of rocks and old bones, but through careful questioning the teacher encouraged us to consider the meaning of what we were seeing (this was all done in French with Cecily translating for Chris and me). What gradually became apparent was that the site contained animal bones and appeared to be a butchery area for a Cro Magnon tribe. We could see from the fact that some bones had no marrow and that there were bone fragments in the fireplace and parts of the animals were used to fuel the fire (at the time it was very cold and there were no trees in the area so animal fat was used to fuel fire). Further examination of the bones showed that one bone had been carved to form a propulsion tool used with the spears. Another rock had even been carved to form a shallow bowl used as a lamp. A ring of rocks showed that we were looking at the remains of one of their tents. I learned a lot and for someone who had a secret desire to be an archaeologist at one point of her life it was fascinating. We learnt that Cro Magnom people were nomads who interacted peacefully with other tribes (cave drawings in the area show a similarity of ideas) and who did not battled each other (nomads typically have no sense of land ownership). The teacher later explained to Cecily that French archeologists look to the Australian aborigines (also nomads) to better understand the Cro Magnons. After this, we had time for a quick spear throwing workshop using the propulsion tools of these people, a blat through the labyrinth and a quick squiz at the different types of tents used by people around Europe at this time.
By this time the park was closing so we had to leave. The experience has given us a taste for leaning more so we will try to book an excursion to the Neanderthal caves in the area next week.