Visitors 3 - Another fine Mas

For our next trip out together, we headed westwards. The weather was still glorious and we explored the entrance to the cave system and descended to the river bed itself. I am sure that when I was there before, there had been a lot more water.
Our first photo stop was at the Eglise de chemin decroix de Raynaude, which has a cross path with 14 chapels perched on the side of the hill behind the church.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I have spoken of the caves at Mas D’azil before, but have still never shelled out the coin to visit the cave itself.
The larger hole on the left is where we went exploring, the smaller hole on the right is the road which runs through the mountain and pops out in the village of Mas D’azil itself.

The village was our next stop, and we wandered about the streets.
I found this corner of the village, which I had not seen before.
It has a bridge across the river, a fully air conditioned public toilet, and an old mill.

There was a family enjoying their midday meal outside in the square next to their house, sitting at a table, with their washing on driers around them.
Time was ticking, so following my GPS instructions, we headed off in the wrong direction.
I turned round at the first opportunity and the GPS eventually got with the program.
We arrived in St Lizier and parked in the car park near the Palace of the Bishops. St Lizier is listed as one of the 2 “most beautiful villages in France” in our region. There are 300 in France. I have visited it before and the choir performed in the Cathedral here 2 summers ago.
When S and I first visited, two years ago the Bishops’ Palace was being refurbished as a major tourist attraction. Indeed it is a world heritage site! It was supposed to re-open last year. We found out that it was still not open. It is not scheduled to open until February 2011. Part of it has opened as an apartment hotel.
We wandered around again. J and I went into the Palace grounds and I followed a fingerpost sign and found this.

A few bits of masonry a cross on a stone plinth and 2 park benches.
We regrouped and ate our picnic at a stone table. I was able to put my pocket knife to good use for a second day, slicing sausage. Could anything else costing £70 be more useful???
Putting our rubbish in the bin (other visitors had not been so courteous), we walked down the road into the village with the Couserain hills on our left and ahead of us. This is hot air balloon country, but I can’t remember if we saw any floating on high in the distance.
There are lots of details to photograph, both in and around the Cathedral and its cloister and in the little twisty streets.

Me photographing J and I, I photographing J and me

I spotted a sign for the library, so went to investigate. The door was open so I walked in.
It was a very small room, with bookshelves round the wall, fair enough. However today appeared to be Scrabble day (French version) and two games were in progress with 5 ladies participating. I had a little chat with them before leaving. They wished me a happy holiday. How could they mistake me for a tourist? It was probably my sister and her hat.
There was a passion fruit plant complete with small orange coloured fruit, and there was also a kiwi plant growing in the same small street. I have not seen kiwis growing before, although I know that there are kiwi farms in the Ariege.

is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a kiwi

Tour of the village completed, we had a drink on a terrace overlooking the main square and the Cathedral. The restaurant seemed to be packing things away, despite it not being very late. When I went off to enquire about the bill, he found out that the waitress had gone home and forgotten all about writing down out order. Doh!!

Westward ho! St-Lizier and Bastide-de-Serou

Whee! Look at me! I'm just hangin' out in the sunshine.






The weather was forecast to be hot and sunny today, so we loaded up the car with gadgetry and set off for St-Lizier, which is in theory about 45 minutes drive away. We were following a route that we have travelled before, heading towards St Girons. About half way there the satnav told us to go right left right in very quick succession, which is not easy on a relatively straight road. We never found the road that Michelin advised that they road traveller take either.
The road into St Girons is so twisty and stupid that I don’t know why people bother. We had probably gone wrong again, but we eventually found ourselves at a busy junction and took a right turn and found St-Lizier with little trouble. Parking was a bit of a problem. We continued to climb the road into the town, following the P signs. There is a smallish car park, but most of the land up there is being remodelled into a bigger car park at a cost of 440,000 euros. This is where the entrance to the main attraction of the town is, the citadel. Unfortunately it would seem that it has been closed to the public since Sept 2006. Strange that I did not find a mention of that before we set off.
St-Lizier has been designated as one of the most beautiful villages in France.
It is easy to see why. There are many half-timbered houses, quaint narrow, cobbled streets, the Pyrenees mountains, some of them snow-capped, can be seen across the valley.

We popped into the tourist information centre for a few leaflets, then went into the church. This proved to be rather gloomy, but there were interesting ceiling tiles and a very unconvincing trompe l’oeil window to admire, as well as the usual statuary.
A hot air balloon could be seen through the trees, in the direction of the mountains. There were several interesting stone carvings or gargoyles. One little chap still has his willy intact. This would not happen in the UK, where many women like to "take a chip off the old bloke"

The Villa Belisama looked like a nice B&B to stay at. It has a panoramic pool, but we were not able to see it.
















There were many interesting bits and pieces to photograph and I shall stick a few onto this flickr link for you to see.

After about 2 hours of wandering, we headed back home, but stopped for a look round another, smaller town, which we hear mention of quite a lot. Bastide-de-Serou.
Now this was a disappointing place. Much of the property is in a dilapidated state, there are no shops to speak of except a Doreur (Gilder) which had it’s shutters down so I don’t know if it is still in business, and there was a saddle and harness makers showroom.
The church, with its strange, thin bell tower, was gloomy and dark. There was a covered market place which still had the remains of three stone vessels, formerly used to measure quantities of grain.
















The link to the Serou photos is as above.














No sign of Leonard Cohen, but Michelle might have enjoyed it all the same.