love lift us up where we belong (Alaigne)

where the eagles fly ... I have been trying to photograph an eagle, or buzzard, as they are called here, since we arrived. Without success. Then today, by accident, it happened.

the view from Rennes-le-Chateau

What I actually wanted to show you dear reader, was something that has niggled at me all the way around France. They have the most beautiful eye for detail. You can turn a corner and there will be the most magnificent view of a building framed by the streetscape. Not to the mention the castles and their dominance of the landscape. You get the idea. But they also have an errant disregard for that same beauty. If I get bored before I head for home (unlikely) I will put together a page of the most beautiful scenes/buildings that have been destroyed by parking areas, trucks, signs, garbage, electricity cable, scaffolding or in this case, those bloody ugly wind turbines.

Europe, as I have observed previously, is far more conscious of renewable energy options - most cars are diesel, solar is bigger than at home (and that's crazy on our part) and on every beautiful hill side in France there are wind turbines. Their nuclear power stations are nearing the end of functional life and they are exploring alternate sources of clean energy.

Alaigne
We are staying in an B&B this time, so last night we had pre-dinner drinks with our wonderful hosts Geoff and Lin and a lovely couple from Belgium who are staying in the Gite. We were introduced to the local wine, a sparkling, which was made here before Dom Perignon 'appropriated' the method and began making champagne. The local variety is called Blanquette. It is slightly sweeter and has more fizz.

Delma has her own winery!

Here's one I sampled earlier.

Esperaza
We began the morning here at the markets. Well, it's the French thing to do, but since we are at a B&B we really didn't need anything - we just went for the local colour and to see what's on offer. Car-boot sales are big in this region here too and we hope to get to one.  The markets were interesting in that many of the stall holders are runaway hippies who are seeking an alternative lifestyle and have congregated here among the mountains to commune with nature and produce "bio" products - this appears to be the local focus, everything labelled bio, from vegies to wines to restaurants.  We could have been forgiven for thinking we had dropped in on Nimbin or Byron Bay.  They don't, however, seem to be adverse to importing products to sell which may or may not fit the bio (pronounced bee-oh) profile. We found musical instruments from China, Nepal and even didgeridoos - probably all of which were made by people who are being exploited in their native countries.

Rennes-le-Chateau

I'll try to keep this brief, but this place has it all: great views, history back to medieval times, links to the end of the world, aliens, conspiracy theories and connections to the Holy Grail as Mary Magdalene (and yes, the Hollywood rip-off was the Da Vinci Code). Our first full day was overwhelming. And to cap it off, we watched a couple of hours of documentaries about it. Some of it was a bit of a stretch, but it makes the area more fascinating.

Magdalene Tower

The view is magnificent, but that alone is not sufficient reason to live up here, which makes me wonder about the authenticity of some of the stories.

Imagine waking up to that view every morning?

Dude, why so angry?

There is a church attached to the other end of the tower, with a garden and presbytery in-between. The church has some interesting features, like the carved devil that holds up the holy water font as you walk in the door.




And the nice skull and cross bones above the door through to the cemetery. It hardly encourages visitors.

Not  pirate in sight.

But the best stuff was associated with the Stations of the Cross paintings inside the church that the priest had commissioned. Strangely, they contained hidden messages about a 'hidden' treasure. Curiously, not all 14 stations contained a secret message. And yes, the secret, it was implied, was to do with the truth about the Holy Grail. So, we were back to the Mary Magdalene story and the line of descent from King David through to Jesus and beyond.


This stuff reminded me of the hysteria around the 'death of Paul McCartney' and all the secret messages on the Abbey Road album cover and in some of the song lyrics (google time Gen Y). McCartney was replaced by an alien, which seriously explains some things. Anyway, the story behind Rennes-le-Chateau made that pale into insignificance. It even made Dan Brown's sad little attempt at a conspiracy theory look like a children's bed time story. And it is way too complex to take further here, but over a red on a Sunday afternoon...

We finished off the day with a bottle of the local Blanquette, aptly from the producer, Delma, and some canapes that our friendly hosts just popped in unannounced to supply to accompany our drinks.

In a continuation of the Catholic theme, tomorrow we head for Lourdes.