Or to give Beziers' gothic cathedral its full name - Cathédrale Saint-Nazaire-et-Saint-Celse de Béziers - was built from the 13th to 15th centuries on the remains of an older romanesque church that was destroyed during the massacre of Beziers by the Albigensian Crusaders on 22nd July 1209.
The cathedral and old part of the town are situated on a high point overlooking the Orb river and the cathedral can be seen from far away.
Raimond Roger Trencavel (below) was viscount of Beziers and Carcassonne and lived at the same time as the crusade against the Cathars. When the Albigensian crusade was on its way towards Beziers, Albi and Carcassonne with 10,000 men, Raimond Roger tried to do a deal with the crusaders, but they refused to meet with him. He fled to the fortified city of Carcassonne which was subsequently surrounded and its drinking water cut off. When Carcassonne surrendered, the people were forced to leave but after receiving safe passage in order to negotiate the surrender, Raimond Roger was then captured and thrown into a dungeon, where he eventually died.
Beziers, however, didn't get off so lightly. The cathedral was destroyed and the thousands of townsfolk were massacred.
The beautiful organ pipes and stained glass circular window, above and below.
The cloister, above and below, has apparently never been finished due to a lack of funding. It looks OK to me!
I really wanted to go up the 149 steps to the roof and my brother came with me. It was all via circular staircase with a break at mid level where there is a balcony inside the cathedral. It got a bit dodgy when meeting people coming down! Keith didn’t want to come but given his size he would have found it pretty tight in there. It was fairly tough and most people were puffing and panting and taking breathers, like me!
We didn’t go all the way to the very top (it was barred off) but came out where there was a small walkway on all four sides of the tower. On this sunny day the views were amazing.
I was using my phone and am surprised my photos came out so well as it was literally point and shoot as I couldn’t see anything on the screen!
Looking down to the Orb river and the old bridge dating from the 12th century on the right, which is not used for vehicles.
Looking inland towards the Montagne Noir. I could actually see the sea from up here.
My brother showing how narrow it was in most places up there!
Once down we walked around to this garden which had a lovely view and where we could even feel some warmth from the sun, despite the temp being about 11C. The trees are all citrus trees but without any fruit on. It was a lovely place to just sit and chill for a bit.
Next Xmas we plan to visit Perpignan in neighbouring Pyrenees-Orientales department, then we will have finally been to all the main towns around here. 😄
We visited Beziers after Christmas for the first time. This is one of the main towns in the Herault department, which neighbours our department, Aude. It's a bit bigger than Narbonne where we went last Xmas, and we were lucky with the weather, although this day wasn't eat outside weather!
Don't be tricked by the snow though - it's all fake! As we were wandering around the town we came to this big open square which was near the restaurant that we were heading for. I absolutely loved these decorations - they really went to town here. I bet it looks great lit up at night as well, but with the blue sky, it looks amazing!
I just loved all these domes filled with different snowy winter scenes.
Here's Santa and his reindeer, and they are galloping/flying down a rill (that's shallow water flowing in the middle there).
The fountains were permanent but fun to watch too as they changed every few seconds.
A reflection of all three of us!
Beziers is famous for its Trompe l'Oeil decorations on the walls. That means 'trick of the eye' and some are truly amazing with the 3D effect (particularly the one below this, as I thought the top balcony was real!). We only came across two of them, but I believe you can get a map of their locations from the tourist office.
Isn't it amazing - all those shadows painted on which look real, and to paint the balcony railings too - wow! Even the door at ground level is painted.
Later in the day we came across this cute petting zoo. I can't resist things like this and there were some teeny tiny goats that were so cute, but it was hard to get close as there were lots of people in that enclosure - and fluffy legged chickens in there too!
We then visited the cathedral but I will put those pictures in another post.
As we had a few days to spare due to bad weather changing our plans, we decided to visit somewhere new - Andorra. We spent a couple of nights at the campsite in the capital town of Andorra la Vella. At first it seemed an ideal base for exploring Andorra, but traffic was horrendous and the noise was awful. We were not impressed by how built up Andorra was, and how ugly those built up places were. Think ski resort equivalent of concrete ugliness on the Spanish costas from the 1960s.
However, once you get away from the concrete, the landscape is amazing. Just peace and quiet and mountain scenery everywhere.
We drove up to Port de Cabus, a dead end at 2,302m altitude. There is a rough track down the mountainside to Spain, but it's only accessible by 4wd vehicles.
This bird was perched quite close to us - it's a Water Pipit (Anthus spinoletta).
There were a few wildflowers - the pink flower is Moss Campion (Silene acaulis), but I found very few due to the usual grazing....
...and here are the culprits!
I couldn't mind too much as I love horses too.
We then drove down the mountain looking for somewhere else to go. I saw a nature reserve marked on the map, but just after we turned off the main road into the road leading there, we saw a No Motorhomes sign. A bit stupid not to put it before the entrance to the side road, we thought. When we got to the car park, unfortunately there was a ticket office or info booth. As we sat there wondering whether to risk it or not, a knock came at the door. "You can't park here" we were told. It's so frustrating when this happens as we have no interest in camping there for the night, we just want to go for a walk in the nature reserve like all the other people there!
I found somewhere else marked as a walk on the map and on the way we stopped by this bridge to have a look. It's hard to know if it is an old bridge or just done in the style of one, as it looks a bit too freshly done, but whatever, it was cute.
A bit further on beside the same stream was our walk, the 'Ruta del Ferro' (Iron Route) where there is an old iron mine that can be visited, but we gave that a miss. Near there is this place where there is iron in the ground as can be seen by the rusty orange colour on the rock.
An interesting legume plant (Lathyrus laevigatus).
We walked along beside a stream where this damp meadow was absolutely full of this attractive Bistort (Bistorta officinalis) with an umbellifer of some sort behind.
The Valira d'Orient stream.
We then found ourselves in a large wildflower meadow up above the stream with a strange group of sculptures, which were rather amusing.
I found the wildflowers more interesting though!
Below we have a Speckled Yellow Moth (Pseudopanthera macularia) on the left and a Large Tortoiseshell (Nymphalis polychloros) caterpillar on the right. I've never seen a Large Tortoiseshell so this was quite exciting!
It's been a long time since I saw a Mallow Skipper (Carcharodus alceae) and this one was so interested in nectaring that I was able to get some reasonable photos (I wasn't using my 'butterfly' camera though so I couldn't get really close up shots).
Below left is a very tatty Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni) on Viper's Bugloss (Echium vulgare) and on the right is a Clouded Yellow (Colias croceus).
The wacky statues from beside the stream.
A bit further along we came across this bridge situated in a strange place. Did the river change its course, we wondered?
Nope, it was another piece of art! I loved the metal kids pushing the big rock up the slope. What a great bit of art.
Below is a map showing from Lake Sant Maurici to Andorra and the places in Andorra that we visited on this day.
Well done if you got to the end, I know it's a bit of a long post! 😀
