Another one of farmer Luc’s day excursions for us today; we went further towards the Pyrenees to visit a sleepy little village called Roquefixade. The village of Roquefixade itself, though sleepily French, is relatively unremarkable but towering above it on a seemingly impregnable precipice, is the Chateau Roquefixade, a Cathar castle. It has to be said that there are much more impressive Cathar castles, such as Peyreperteuse and Quéribus, which are more impressive and are in much more seemingly impregnable places but, nonetheless, it was worth the visit and worth the climb up. Bedsides, it was closer.
We’ve seen some of the impressive Cathar castles before, including the aforementioned Peyreperteuse and Quéribus. They are sights to behold, especially when one tries to imagine the effort required building them where they stand. The Cathar sect shunned materialism and caused consternation in the established wealthy (corrupt?) religious powers of northern France in the 13th century. Eventually, led by Simon de Montfort, the financially corrupt powers-that-be, conquered the seemingly impregnable Cathar castles one by one and burned most of the inhabitants.
What a wonderful race the human race is.
We were approaching the time we would need to clamber back north to get our ferry on Sunday at midday. We could leave on Friday but Friday promised strong headwinds in the Languedoc. Together with the possibility of poor weather on Thursday, we elected to travel on Thursday and make the northward journey to Normandy in three comfortable days rather than in two long days.
[…] an addendum to our recently completed trip around France. One of the places Carol and I visited was Roquefixade. The village nestles beneath a so-called Cathar castle built on a precarious-looking precipice […]