France

Elne

On Monday, August 25 in the morning I passed to the Weldom store to exchange the female European plug for a plug tor the connection on a terminal. My first halt was in Elne to visit the church Ste-Eulalie-and-Ste-Julie built in the 11th century then supplemented at the 14th-15th centuries. Most remarkable is the cloister whose capitals of the columns tell passages of the genesis.

Perpignan

After lunching I entered Perpignan looking for a parking lot which I fortuitously found along the channel at the intersection the street Courteline at two steps from the train station of Perpignan, center of the world according to Salvador Dali. The tour proposed by the Green Guide is interesting but alas many monuments were not accessible, the church St-Jacques and the museum of modern art closed for work. I left the city extremely disappointed.

Castillet

Cathedral St Jean

Fort Salses

A little further the Fort of Salses accommodated me. Built in 1493 by Ferdinand the Catholic and Isabelle of Castile. The governor of the Fort went in 1642 learning the fall from Perpignan. Vauban, the impossible to circumvent one, made carry out modifications. But the treaty of the Pyrenees, 1659, definitively fixing the borders between France and Spain, the Fort lost its strategic and military vocation. It finished its career in the not very glorious function of prison during the French Revolution then finally classified historic building in 1886. I bivouacked on a rest area at the entrance of Portel-of-Corbières.

Ferdinand the Catholic	Isabelle dof Castile

Narbonne

Palais des Archevêques

The day of August 26th was devoted to the visit of Narbonne and only to the Palate of the Archbishops and of its neighborhoods. Initially at the bottom of palate I pressed it Via Domitia which connected the Pass of Montgenèvre, Briançon, with the Pass of Banyuls, Port-Vendres. Then I surveyed the lanes around the cathedral St-Just and St-Pasteur while waiting for the opening of the monuments, 10:00. I dedicated the majority of my time to the cathedral and its treasure. I lengthily admired the Gothic retable discovered in 1981 under a layer of stucco. Of course it is very damaged by the vicissitudes of time. The treasure of the cathedral conceals two remarkable parts, a carved ivory pot and a box of marriage in quartz. But the masterpiece is incontestably the Flemish tapestry of the 15th century recalling creation. It is woven in gold wires and of silk. I give an overall photograph of the right corner with details to try to show the smoothness of weaving. After these cultural foods I lunched at the Table St-Crescent of inventive and succulent meets. I moved then towards Montpellier where I bivouacked like on July 22nd at Mauguio to visit the city.

Via Domitia

Palais des Archevêques

Grand retable gothique, 1354/1381	Gueule béante du Léviathan

Les damnés conduits en charrette en enfer	Les élus montant l'escalier au royaume céleste

Ivoire sculpté, 10e siècle	Coffret de mariage en cristal de roche

Tapisserie flamande représentant la Création, 15e siècle

Montpellier

Quartier Antigone

I left my truck on the carpark of Auchan at the Park Exposition station of the Tram, 22 minutes later I were at the Antigone District conceived by the architect Ricardo Bofill using the technique of the prestressed concrete. BOF! I am not enthusiastic.

Round the square of la Comédie

Still 20 minutes of course on foot and I lead to the place of the Comedy which at this early hour is still virgin of tourist and the sky still black of the night rain. While waiting for the opening of the museums I strolled on the tour proposed by the Green Guide book walking on in the small streets bordered of old private mansions of 17th and 18th century. I stopped at greater length with the cathedral St-Pierre which resembles more one fortress than a church with its two towers surrounding the gate. It is of Gothic style without anything in particulars. Contiguous the medical college, very famous as in the Middle Ages was closed to the visit. In 1688 the council of the city decided to create a park, the Promenade de Peyrou, to accommodate a monumental of Louis XIV who arrived only in 1718! I finished the visit of Montpellier by the Fabre museum exposing collections of the various schools of Europe.

Place de la Comédie

Cathédrale St-Pierre

Promenade du Peyrou

Musée Fabre

Rixe de paysans by Breughel	Portrait by Rubens

Portrait by David	Nature morte by Matisse

Le jardin en fleurs à Ste-Adresse by Monet	Les baigneuses by Courbet

Abbaye de Montmajour

At the beginning of afternoon I moved towards Arles which I reached at about 15:30. Alas the parking was impossible mission. I was thus going to visit the Montmajour Abbey with the intention to bivouac there. It is the most extraordinary ruin that it was given me to see during my Pyrenean trip. The crypt under the abbey church is built on the rock. The nave was completed in 1153. The cloister was several times altered during posterior centuries. Finally the monastery Saint-Maur was built in 1703. Tomorrow will be another day to try to visit Arles

Arles

Les Arènes et le Théâtre antique

Arles, early morning I returned to the city looking for a parking lot which I found in a small street behind the carpark of the center, out of silo. The monumental center is concentrated behind the vestiges of the ramparts in a maze of lanes around old private mansions of 17th and 18th century. While strolling I imagined what could be the life at that time, the such very famous, congestion of the Paris streets, noise of horses, bearing of fit with body, cries of rank and file etc. I vainly looked for the best viewing angle of the arenas and the ancient theater, there too impossible mission, primarily due to embarrassment of modern times, erratic parking of cars and terraces of restaurants.

Eglise Saint-Trophisme

The museums open very late, so much worse, I threw my reserved on the church Saint-Trophism whose Romanesque gate is a masterpiece registered at the world heritage of UNESCO. The interior is characterized by a nave and collateral the very narrow. Two vaults conceal each one a sarcophagus as an altar telling of the passages of the bible. The cloister is one of most elegant inf Provence with sculptures, certainly very damaged, which came from the workshop of Saint-Gilles. In the afternoon I found refuge at Saint-Blaise of which I would visit the archeological site tomorrow at the forefront of day.

Site archéologique de Saint-Blaise

The weather power station of my truck announced rain; I undertook the visit of the archeological site as of the opening under a timid sun. The site was invented in 1935 by Henri Roland who spent 35 years of his life to excavate the ground to release it from the vegetation. Saint-Blaise was a Gallic oppidum whose history attested by the excavations can be told in three periods. The antiquated period in 6th and 5th century BC saw hatching a habitat sheltered by a wall and developing the trade with the Mediterranean basin. Then the site was abandoned. The second Hellenistic period in 2nd century BC developed after the construction of a wall in big apparatus. But the competitions in particular with the city of Marseilles involved the call by the latter of the reinforcements of Rome whose troops destroyed the Gallic oppidum with blow of catapulted balls. The third early Christian period started at 5th century AD under the aegis of Arles and was again strengthened. Texts reveal the name of it, Ugium whose activity was related to the trade of the salt extracted from the ponds. Two churches were built and of the rupestral tombs dug outside the ramparts for the wisigothic period, 5th-6th century. The rain fell around 11:30 I took refuge in my truck before my return to Trans-en-Provence via Martigues PSI.

Enceinte en grand appareil type grec, 2e siècle BC	Tour gauloise, 2e siècle BC

St-Pierre d'Ugium, 5e-8e siècle	St-Vincent d'Ugium, 5e-8e siècle

Puits-citerne	Tombes rupestres paléochrétienne

Restitution par Jean-Marie Gassend, 1977