Exit only

See also extra 1's very explicit instructions, guaranteed to confuse no-one. We actually exited the village via this arch, to the pursed lips and boggling eyes of a woman who indicated to us with her fingers just how little space there was between the car and the wall. The plaque commemorates a saint thrown into jail on this spot after being unjustly accused of assault.

Yesterday evening we discussed doing some touristing on the way home this morning, since it's Les Journées du Patrimoine this weekend. S suggested Saint Bertrand des Comminges, officially one of the Plus Beaux Villages de France and which neither of us has ever visited. Seemed like a good plan.

But after yesterday's glorious sunshine, this morning it was raining so hard that we abandoned the idea of going to a cafe for breakfast and succumbed to the rip-off hotel one instead. Then we set off to Saint Bertrand anyway, umbrellas at the ready.

Like Carcassonne, it's an impressive sight from afar, its church perched on top of the hill (extra 2). We were completely underwhelmed by the interior of the church, but shortly after we came out a young woman from the council came up to us in the street and sold us on a visite théâtralisée of the archaeological museum., starting in ten minutes. This was delightful, a dialogue between Cleopatra and Agrippina, sister of Caligula and mother of Nero, about how they had used their brains and feminine wiles to outwit the men in their lives -- though sadly they both ended up poisoned, Agrippina by her own son.  The two actresses really brought the characters to life as real people.


It was nearly 1 pm by the time we left, but we decided we weren't hungry, as we had to eat so much breakfast to justify the 11-euro price tag. So we drove to Foix to visit the castle. It was still raining, and by this time we were of course hungry. Not a good omen at 2:30 pm in France. 

The waitress in a cafe we stopped at threw up her hands in horror when we asked her where we could find something to eat, clearly convinced that we would soon die of starvation, and ignoring my request to just point us to the nearest bakery. We decided to head for the castle, and see what we could find on the way. In the next street, just yards from her cafe, we found a bar with a poster outside announcing "Food served all day". Perhaps some local rivalry forbade mentioning it?

Once we'd persuaded the waitress that no, we did not want an aperitif followed by a 3-course meal with a bottle of wine at 3 pm, we were served big slabs of very good home-made quiche and salad that just hit the spot. With coffee and hot chocolate (it was still raining) the bill came to 20 euros. A bargain compared to yesterday evening!

To the castle then. It has a new museum space which was exemplary in terms of design; well laid out and lit, with clear and simple explanations of the exhibits, plus interactive means of finding out more if you wanted to. My favourite bit was an interactive display of Gaston Fébus's 14th-century hunting manual. A virtual replica of the book was displayed on a horizontal screen on a lectern, and when you swiped to turn a page, immersive animations of the pictures were displayed on walls and floor.

In the grounds of the castle there were costumed presenters giving demonstrations of various medieval crafts; the two young women I saw, explaining respectively medieval weaponry and blacksmithing, were both entertaining and knowledgeable and got rounds of applause from the increasingly damp spectators. No photos, it was too wet and difficult to manipulate umbrella and camera.

We were wet enough now to give up. We'd spent much longer than intended on our touristing, but still had time to stop in Fanjeaux to pick up our new painting! It was still raining, but we parked very close to the gallery and it was bubblewrapped for us. Blip to come ...

We finally got home close to 7 pm feeling quite exhausted; Mystère naturally delighted to see us. A great two-day trip doing different things.