3311, 3323, 3332 FRANCE (Occitania) - Entombment of Christ in Saint-Pierre de Carennac church

3332 Entombment of Christ in Saint-Pierre de Carennac church

Posted on 28.12.2019, 01.01.2019, 04.01.2020

Carennac, one of the most beautiful villages of France, lies in the fertile valley of the Dordogne River, nestled under the barren, parched plateau locally named 'le Causse', and belongs to the historical region of Quercy. Among its most remarkable landmarks is a medieval Clunisian priory, combining 11th-century church of Saint Pierre, and cloister, which features a 15th-century mise au tombeau (entombment of Christ).

3323 Entombment of Christ in Saint-Pierre de Carennac church (detail) (2)

It is impressive by the painful expression of the characters, at the center of which is the crying Virgin Mary, supported by Mary of Clopas, Mary Salomé and Mary Magdalene. Christ, whose face is full of sweetness, is stretched out on a stone table. The shroud is supported by Joseph of Arimathea, on the right, and Nicodemus, on the left, the two disciples who detached the body of Christ from the Cross and buried it.

3311 Entombment of Christ in
Saint-Pierre de Carennac church (detail) (2)

3255 FRANCE (Occitania) - The people of Lozère

Located in the region of Occitanie in southern France near the Massif Central, Lozère is the least populated French department, due to its mountainous relief, and to poor soil quality. There is barely any agricultural farming in Lozère, the main activities being cattle farming and tourism. It is one of the few region where the langue d'oc is spoken fluently because it remained an agricultural department, and that people are attached to their roots. And if the Lozériens speak French, it is strongly mixed with Occitan, what some call the patois.

2820 FRANCE (Occitania) - The Bethmale Valley

Bethmale is a commune in southwestern France, in Pyrenees, with only 98 inhabitants (in 2013). Actually Bethmale is the name of a valley (one of the four which form the area named Castillon), that includes six villages, none of which with that name (Arrien, Aret, Samortein, Ayet, Tournac et Villargein). To the valley be noticed houses with stone walls, covered with slate, with gables, and balconies protected by the roof overhang. The bell tower of the church Saint Michael of Ayet, built between 14th and 18th centuries, dominates the valley.

2635, 2636, 2690 FRANCE (Occitania) - Tautavel

2635 Images from Tautavel

Posted on 23.06.2016, 19.08.2016
Located in the Southern France, in the valley of Verdouble, at 26km from Perpignan, Tautavel is a commune which appeared for the first time in a document written in 1011. Heritage of Tautavel is very rich, the main landmarks being Arago Cave and museum of prehistory, but also the church of Saint-Genis and his furniture, the chapel of Saintes-Puelles, the remains of the castle, the Torre del far and Visigoth sarcophagi. It is also home to The European Centre for Prehistoric Research (CERP).

2636 Arago Cave

The commune is famous due to the Tautavel Man (Homo erectus tautavelensis), a proposed subspecies of the hominid Homo erectus, the 450,000-year-old fossil remains of whom were discovered in the Arago Cave. Excavations began in 1964, with the first notable discovery occurring in 1969. Occupied from 600,000 to 400,000 B.P., the cave is of the earliest known from the middle Pleistocene to archaeology of the Pyrenees.

2690 Homo erectus tautavelensis (Arago XLIV)

The skeletal remains of two individual hominids have been found in the cave: a female older than 40 (Arago II), and a male aged no more than 20 (Arago XXI and Arago XLVII). Recovered stone tools originate from within a 5km radius of the cave, while animal bones suggest the inhabitants could travel up to 33km for food. No signs of fire, ash, charcoal, burned stone, or clay is documented in the cave which seems to suggest the art of fire is a recent discovery.

2611 FRANCE (Occitania) - Lot Department

2611 Lot Department: Valentré Bridge;Saint-Cirq-Lapopie; Rocamadour.

Located in the southwest of France and named after the Lot River, Lot is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution in 1790. It was created from part of the province of Languedoc. In 1808 some of the original southeastern cantons were separated from it to form the department of Tarn-et-Garonne. It originally extended much farther to the south and included the city of Montauban. It is a land of beautiful landscapes of dramatic gorges, slow moving rivers, numerous beautiful villages, and vineyards.

2555 FRANCE (Occitania) - Hérault Department

Located in southern France and named after the Hérault river, Hérault department was one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution in 1790. It is very geographically diverse, with beaches in the south, the Cévennes mountains in the north, and agricultural land in between. Its capital city is Montpellier, the third-largest French city on the Mediterranean coast after Marseille and Nice.

2546 FRANCE (Occitania) -The Historical Wonders of Gard Department

Located in southern France, with a narrow output to the Mediterranean, Gard department was named after the River Gardon, and the Occitan name of the river has been replacing the French name of the department in recent decades, even among French speakers. It does have distinctly Languedoc qualities, such as the high number of historical sites, the bull fights at Nimes, and its dramatic landscapes. In fact, it's in the Gard that the move away from the Mediterranean into a more continental, mountainous landscape begins.

2327 FRANCE (Occitania) - Grottes de Trabuc

The Grottes de Trabuc (Caves of Trabuc), located not far from the hamlet of Mas Soubeyran, constitute of the largest coherent network of underground cavities in the Cevennes. To date, these system cavities and underground galleries have been researched to a length of more than 7km. As a special attraction are the "Hundred Thousand Soldiers." These are tiny stalactites, standing side by side so close that they look like an army of soldier figurines.

2285 FRANCE (Occitania) - Landscape from Cevennes

The Cévennes are a range of mountains in south-central France, part of the  Massif Central. They run from southwest (Cause Noire) to northeast (Monts du Vivarais), with the highest point being the Mont Lozère (1702m). Another notable peak is the Mont Aigoual (1567m). The Loire and Allier flowing towards the Atlantic ocean, as well as the Ardèche, the different Gardons to the Rhône, Vidourle, Hérault and Dourbie rivers that flow to the Mediterranean Sea, have their headwaters in the Cévennes.

1986 FRANCE (Occitania) - Church of Saint Mary Magdalene in Rennes-le-Château

Rennes-le-Château, a small commune located  in southern France, is known internationally as the center of various conspiracy theories, but also as the location of an alleged buried treasure discovered by its 19th-century priest Bérenger Saunière. The village church dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene has an extremely complex history, having been rebuilt several times. The earliest church may date to the 8th century. During the 11th century another church was built upon the site, which survived in poor repair until the 19th century, when it was renovated by the local priest, Bérenger Saunière.

1119 FRANCE (Occitania) - Historic Fortified City of Carcassonne (UNESCO WHS)

Situated in the Aude plain between two great axis of circulation linking the Atlantic to the Mediterranean sea and the Massif Central to the Pyrénées, Carcassonne has about 2,500 years of history and is famous for its medieval fortress, located on a hill on the right bank of the River Aude, and restored by the theorist and architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in 1853 and added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1997. At the beginning of its history it was a Gaulish settlement then in the 3rd century A.D., the Romans decided to transform it into a fortified town. The main part of the lower courses of the northern ramparts dates from these times. Visigoths had occupied Carcassonne in 453, and built more fortifications. In 725 Saracens from Barcelona took the citadel, but King Pepin the Short drove them away in 759-60.

0888 FRANCE (Occitania) - Pont du Gard (UNESCO WHS)

Built shortly before the Christian era to allow the aqueduct of Nîmes (which is almost 50 km long) to cross the Gardon River, the Pont du Gard is the highest of all Roman aqueduct bridges and is the best preserved with the Aqueduct of Segovia. The Roman architects and hydraulic engineers who designed this bridge, which stands almost 50 m high and is on three levels - the longest measuring 275m - created a technical as well as an artistic masterpiece, for which reason it was added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1985. After the collapse of the Roman Empire and the aqueduct's fall into disuse, the Pont du Gard remained largely intact due to its importance as a toll bridge. For centuries the local lords and bishops were responsible for its upkeep in exchange for the right to levy tolls on travellers.

0886 FRANCE (Occitania) - Episcopal City of Albi (UNESCO WHS)

Located on the River Tarn, in Languedoc, Albi was inhabited since the Bronze Age, but began to develop only in 11th century, in 1040 being built the Pont Vieux (Old Bridge), and new quarters. The city grew rich at this time, thanks to trade and commercial exchanges, and also to the tolls charged to travelers for using the Pont Vieux. In the second half of the 12th century became one of the important centers of the Cathars, a christian movement which claimed the idea of two Gods or principles, one being good (the God of the New Testament) and the other evil (Satan). Of course that the movement was declared heretical, and the repression was severe, many Cathars being burnt at the stake. The area, until then virtually independent, was reduced to such a condition that it was subsequently annexed by the French Crown.

0689 FRANCE (Occitania) - Mont-Louis - part of Fortifications of Vauban (UNESCO WHS)

After the movement of the frontier between France and Spain as a result of the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659), the Spaniards fortified the town of Puigcerdà to protect Cerdanya. When war broke out again, Spanish troops undertook raids across the frontier from their new fortess, so that king Louis XIV sent Vauban to the area in 1679 to ensure the frontier. The location he chose for the new fortress was just outside Cerdanya itself, at the head of the Aude and Tet valleys and guarding the routes to Toulouse and Perpignan.

0680 FRANCE (Occitania) - Villefranche-de-Conflent - part of Fortifications of Vauban (UNESCO WHS)

Located in the Conflent region of Catalonia (now in the Pyrénées-Orientales department in France), at the confluence of the Têt and Cady rivers, Villefranche-de-Conflent bars the road down the valley from Mont-Louis and Spain. The town is dominated by the mountainsides around it, which provide many ideal locations for enemy batteries to hammer the walls, so it was fortified for the beginning, since it was founded, in 1098. Captured by the French in 1654, it was part of the program of construction and improvement of outlying French defenses led by through 1707 by Marshal Vauban.

0450 FRANCE (Occitania) - The Yellow Train / Le Chemin de fer de Cerdagne (UNESCO WHS - Tentative List))

The Ligne de Cerdagne, often called the Yellow Train (in French: Train Jaune, in Catalan: Tren Groc), after its yellow and red colours, derived from the Catalan flag, is a metre gauge railway that runs from Villefranche-de-Conflent through to Mont-Louis, in Roussillon (French Catalonia). This spectacular feat of civil engineering was started in 1903 and the section to Mont-Louis was completed in 1910, followed by an extension to Latour-de-Carol in 1927. It's 63km long and climbs to 1,593m at Bolquère-Eyne, the highest railway station in France, then drops down to a high Pyrenean valley, to its terminus at Latour de Carol, near the Spanish town of Puigcerda.

0159 FRANCE (Occitania) - Basilica Saint-Sernin in Toulouse (UNESCO WHS)

0159 Toulouse - Basilica Saint-Sernin

Per Tolosa totjorn mai (For Toulouse, always more). This is the motto of the capital of the former province of Languedoc, located on the banks of the River Garonne, which is part of Canal des Deux Mers. Settlement of the Aquitani, over which came first the Iberians, then the Volcae Tectosages tribe, followed in the next centuries by the Romans, the Cimbri, the Visigoths and finally the Franks, Toulouse became in the early Middle Ages the capital of the county with the same name, annexed by Kingdom of France in 1271.

0090 FRANCE (Occitania) - Canal du Midi (UNESCO WHS)

Unlike many other monarchs, Louis XIV had at its disposal, besides tenacity and funds, enough time to carry out his plans, so that after over 72 years of reign he was left a legacy to France as only very few others have succeeded. Among the constructions left behind is the Canal du Midi, probably the most important engineering project of the XVII century, which cost over 15 million livres. Probably you wonder, like me, how much means 15 million livres.