The Four Chateaux de Lastours and the Chateau de Foix

Back again! We had a good holiday, but it was somewhat disappointing due to very mixed weather. There were three trips I had planned which involved going up high on either rack railways or a cable car - all three had to be cancelled due to low cloud cover and/or cold wet weather! So our itinerary changed quite a lot, which meant spending my evenings researching other things to do and finding other campsites, which was a pain. It mostly wasn't very good for butterflies either as it seemed that most of the high places had been grazed so there were few flowers about. Finally towards the end of the holiday things looked up and we found Apollo butterflies after over 20 years since our last sighting - and I saw my first Camberwell Beauty!💜💜💜

Since my brother was staying for another 10 days after we returned home, we decided to get out and do a few more touristy things closer to home, when the weather was good.

First up, the Quatre Chateaux de Lastours which is just north of Carcassonne in the Montagne Noir. We had lunch out first in the village then managed to slowly clamber up the fairly rough paths and many steps to three of the ruins. The fourth chateau was over the other side of the hill and involved a lot more walking, so given the heat we decided to call it a day and went back down for a well earned ice cream!

These ruined chateaux are known as Cathar castles - there are many of them in this department. The Cathars were a weird offshoot of the Catholic church and considered heretics, hence the crusades ordered against them by Pope Innocent III to eradicate the movement. There was much bloodshed and atrocities thanks to the likes of Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester who became the crusade leader. My own village and all our neighbouring villages and small towns all fell to the crusaders during the early 13th century, some surrendering without a fight.

Many Cathars retreated to castles as the noblemen of the area were sympathetic to their movement, but some of castles were rebuilt or built afresh by the crusaders after Catharism had been mostly eradicated and these castles are referred to as Cathar castles as well. These castles at Lastours were mostly built in the 10th century by the Lords of Cabaret, and after resisting Simon de Montfort's troops for many years, eventually succumbed and were then rebuilt as royal fortresses. So what we see now are not the original Cathar castles.

The Italian Cypresses make for a very scenic looking hillside!

Looking down on the village - the brick chimney is a remnant from when this was an important textile producing town, and the old mill is now the visitor centre.

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We have been meaning to visit Foix castle for years but never had enough time after coming back from a moho trip with my brother, and we never really fancied it in the winter either when he comes for Xmas. So this was an opportune time.

It's such a delight to park in a town in a car after all the trials and tribulations of trying to find parking in a moho! 

Foix is another Cathar castle which sits on a rock above the town, which is the capital of the Ariège department. The castle was constructed around the year 1000 and during the Albigensian crusade against the Cathars it was never taken, despite Simon de Montfort laying seige to it in 1211 and 1212. It was however taken by force by French King Philippe the Bold in 1272. The round tower that you see below was added in the 15th century.

A visit to the museum at the base of the castle is included in the entrance ticket.

Sitting on the bog! Yes, my bum is in a hole, though I am surprised as many latrines in castles that I have seen before were constructed so that waste fell down outside the castle walls.

Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?

A trebuchet, a medieval weapon of war, which is a kind of catapault that was a powerful seige engine. This is a small one and most probably a reconstruction.

There was tons of building work going on around the castle making photography very difficult! The castle had just reopened after six months of work so we were somewhat surprised but I guess they wanted the place open for the summer tourist season.

Inside the round tower there were a couple of rooms with old graffiti, some dating from the 18th and 19th centuries. We later learned that it was done by prisoners. Click on the photo to see it larger and you'll see the graffiti scratched in the walls more clearly.

The church of Saint-Volusien, again surrounded by hoardings and building works, hence slightly strange camera angle. This church dates from the 13th C but has been rebuilt several times since then.

Foix was a little disappointing as the medieval section looked anything but! We noted two really old attractive half timbered buildings, but the rest had rendered facades and looked like any other building apart from the colours on the walls and windows.

In home news, before we left we discovered a few baby mantises which had just hatched out of one of our oothecas! The other two oothecas still look the same - even if they had been parasitised, there don't appear to be any holes from anything hatching out. Anyway, the baby mantises were about the size of a large ant. Fabulous to see them so little and cute. We saw another one a few days later but not seen any more, adult or otherwise.

My wasp spiders are back again! I would like to think it is because I moved some of the egg sacs to sheltered places, so they have survived and remain in the garden area. There are four in my Nectar Bar and five in the ditch, of different sizes, but they are all small at the moment and only easy to spot by the zigzag of the stabilimentum.

I also spotted a Large Blue butterfly the other day - I noted all the markings then came in to look in my ID book. No other butterfly that flies in this area has dark markings on its upper wings, and it was larger than the regular size blues we see. We are also having an amazing year for Oregano, which is one of the two host plants (Thyme being the other). They are one of the blue butterflies which are then raised by a particular species of ant after starting life eating the host plant.

As for the bee hotel - we came back from holiday to discover varying sized holes already filled in, and since then there has been non-stop activity. I have watched three bees of different sizes coming backwards and forwards to the holes. There is a yellow and black medium sized bee currently filling in its fourth hole, and yesterday whilst on my hands and knees looking into these holes, a loud buzzing appeared around my head - the poor bee was trying to get into its latest nest hole! It had something white in its mouth, and it has been lining the hole with this white substance. It spent ages in there, moving around inside, presumably smoothing it out, before it starts making the nest chambers. The nest holes are filled in with various materials as well - different coloured dirt, some smoother than others, and some that look like they are covered in a sort of translucent cellophane! It's so thoroughly fascinating and I'm so pleased that the bees have found it, despite it being on the patio! 

Thus ends a rather long post from me, but I'm making up for having been quiet for a while. 😀

More Orchids at home and a new bee hotel

This is certainly a good year for orchids! We have so many at home and some new ones too which is exciting.

Just along the road, on a steep bank below my neighbour's house (who, by the way, mowed off all those lovely Lady Orchids that I showed in my last post about orchids around here *rolls eyes*) I noticed a couple of orchids amongst the Lady Orchids which were different. I couldn't get close to them as the slope is way too steep to climb but my zoomed photos were good enough for them to be identified on our local Facebook group.

This is a Military Orchid (Orchis militaris), though sadly it's going over. Now last year I found one on the other side of the road, further along, and I've been looking for it this year, in vain. I don't mind where one pops up though and the nearer to my garden the better!

Then there was this one, which has been identified as a Lady x Military cross which, given there were about eight Lady Orchids here, makes sense. Maybe the Military Orchid was there last year but I didn't notice.

This is the hybrid orchid on the bank above a regular Lady Orchid (Orchis purpurea).

A picture of my lawn and this is even after I have removed dozens of labels! It's better if you click to view the photo larger as you can see the orchids clearer.

A big surprise this year was discovering the first Long-lipped Tongue Orchid (Serapias vomeracea) in our lawn! The poor thing has been mown when it was in bud so it is rather stunted, but hopefully it will spread seeds in time.

Maybe it came from this one which is in the verge outside our house which I discovered a few years ago. It’s the only one I can see in our road though, so these two feel extra special.

A closer look at the orchid lawn - the two main species flowering now, Man Orchids and Pyramidal Orchids.

Man Orchids (Orchis anthropophora) are interesting when you look at them close up. The man shape (the lip, or labellum) is like a childlike drawing of a man, with spindly limbs. They can have various colours on the lip, from cream to pale yellow and pink to red. 

This one is cream at the bottom and dark pinky red at the top.

Pyramidal Orchid (Anacamptis pyramidalis).

We have eight Lizard Orchids (Himantoglossum hircinum) in bud in the lawn, and this one on the bank under our hedge outside, which is a first for there. 

In the back garden we have loads of Early Spider Orchids (Ophrys sphegodes). The first ones appeared around March/April but these are a second flush, though are not the Late Spider Orchid, which is a different species!

The nectar bar is doing extremely well with many plants way too big! I pruned back that Sage in the middle by more than half at the end of winter, but it’s already as big as it was last year. And the Catmints are even bigger this year! I’m using link stakes to hold some plants away from others to stop them getting swamped. 

There seems to be lots of interest in the flowers this year and I’ve seen my first ever Longhorned Bee and a Glanville Fritillary on the flowers this spring, amongst many others. Yesterday evening there were six Hummingbird Hawkmoths feeding at the same time - a fabulous sight!

The Pyracantha hedge is covered in flowers and just alive with insects. Butterflies love it as well as flies, bees, wasps and beetles. Below: Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta).

Keith discovered this Glanville Fritillary (Melitaea cinxia) perched on a pool filter cover! It was happy to pose and then I took it on my finger and put it on a plant. I think it must have recently eclosed as it didn't seem to want to fly away.

For my birthday I asked for a bee hotel as we left our old one behind when we moved. This is a much bigger one, although it's not as deep so depending on how many eggs specific bees lay, they can always use more than one hole. I think he did a great job making it from odds and ends of wood that we had in the garage. 💜

For the moment I have put it behind a pillar on the patio where it is both in the shade and dry. Although I haven't seen any in action, we have had solitary bees nesting in little spaces in our shutters, including leaf cutter bees, so they must fly along this area. There are pots with flowers on the patio nearby, so hopefully they will find it. We will see! 😀

Keith remembered me getting excited about seeing a picture of some amazing spider brooches so kindly got me some of my own.

It was very sweet of him, although he didn't quite match the size of the originals (nor the price, I am sure!!!) worn by Queen Maxima of the Netherlands! Aren't they amazing? Apparently she has lots of insect jewellery. 😀


Credit Hello Magazine

Well there you go, a long post to finish on. We did go on an amazing botanical/orchid day out recently with our birding group, but I have so many photos that I will leave that blog post until after our holiday! For now, I am out of here as my brother is coming at the weekend and I need to get the house cleaned and the moho ready for our upcoming holiday. See you anon. 😁

Wildflowers and more on Mont Carrière, Villasavary

Mont Carrière isn't a mountain, it's just a hill no higher than our own village, which is only a few kilometers away. It's known for its wild orchids and we have visited several times, and I blogged about it in 2021 when we visited in April. It was interesting this time to see it a month later, with different plants in bloom.

As we didn't fancy the long uphill walk, we decided to drive partway up the farm track as we have 4-wheel drive. When we got to a place where we could park, we discovered there was another field entrance, this one leading to a tarmac road (albeit a very small, rough lane). It turned out we could have avoided the rough track coming up this way, as we discovered driving home on the proper road! It's in the Faves of our SatNav now. 😀

Looking towards our village, Fanjeaux.

What I love so much about this area is that initially we were walking along beside arable fields on a brown dirt track with long rough grass on the sides, when suddenly the brown dirt on the track gave way to white chalk and the long grass gave way to garrigue vegetation, particularly on the south facing slope - Rosemary, Thyme, Lavender, Curry Plant and much more. The decidious trees up here were mainly Downy Oak (Quercus pubescens) which likes dry limestone soils in a Mediterranean-Oceanic Climate, which is pretty much what we have here.

Fanjeaux from Mont Carriere, a green Tiger Beetle (Cicindela campestris) and a Glanville Fritillary (Melitaea cinxia).

As far as orchids were concerned it was a little disappointing, as whilst there had been a nice selection of orchids in April, in May there were only two orchid species coming into bloom that we could find. Below is the Long-lipped (or Ploughshare) Tongue Orchid (Serapias vomeracea).

And this is the Pyramidal Orchid (Anacamptis pyramidalis). We have both these species in our lawn!

Looking towards the plateau at the top of Mont Carrière, with Fanjeaux to the right and the Corbieres hills in the far distance.

There were tons of Owlflies flitting about, although they are quite hard to photograph as they don't stop for long when they do perch! Keith's photo has a nicer background than mine. This species is called the Owly Sulphur (Libelloides coccajus). Owlflies are part of the insect order Neuroptera, which includes the Lacewings, Antlions and Mantisflies - in my opinion some of the coolest insects to be found!

Photo credit: Keith Allen

Because this is an orchid walk, there were a number of info boards showing different species found here.

Wild Gladioli (Gladiolus illyricus), a gorgeous Barbie pink, though this specimen was past it's best. It was the only one I could get close to though.

On the plateau we remembered there being lots of Swallowtails the previous times we visited, and there were still plenty flying around, this Scarce Swallowtail (Iphiclides podalirius) and also the regular Swallowtail (Papilio machaon).

Photo credit: Keith Allen

On the highest part of the plateau there is a 360 degree view and these info boards showing what is in each of the four directions is really handy, naming all the hills and mountain peaks. Here we are looking towards the Montagne Noir. We could see the Pyrenees on the opposite side, but the clarity wasn't great (it is at its best in winter).

This is a really pretty plant - it is Dropwort, or Fern-leaf Dropwort (Filipendula vulgaris) which is closely related to Meadowsweet, another Filipendula. It likes dry pastures and chalky soil.

Rosy Garlic (Allium roseum), a wild garlic of the Mediterranean region.

Another view looking towards Fanjeaux with a bit of the Pyrenees to the right and the Corbieres to the left, and garrigue plants in the foreground.

On our return, once back into the grassy arable area, we spotted a few of these delightful Narbonne Star-of-Bethlehems (Ornithogalum narbonense). I love the stripy buds!

I just love this time of year! We will be away for three weeks in June, going all around the Pyrenees on both the Spanish and French sides, so I am looking forward to the mountain wildflowers and hopefully lots of butterflies! I have one more post to go after this but I will probably go quiet for a while after that.