A Room With a View

This last weekend was another holiday. No school on Monday due to the Feast of the Pentecost or Whitsun an ancient holiday celebrated for centuries BC to celebrate the return of the dead to their after life. Now we celebrate it by renting a car and taking off!

The picture to the left is from our two star hotel room! In a little town called Banyuls sur Mer. You can visit it web wise at http://www.banyuls-sur-mer.com/. It use to be a sleepy little fishing village and compared to neighboring towns it still is. We happened to come to it because the place we were headed for was so crowded and busy that there was no way we could stay there. Luck found us a beach parking spot, then when we asked at a hotel that was full for a recommendation the person at the desk very kindly called a friend at another hotel and reserved us a room.

True it was on the 3rd floor but I climb stairs for fun. ;-) The hotel was right across the street from the beach. It was clean, with a view, and wifi! I wanted to stay for a week. But alas that was not to be we left at 11 am the next day to resume our one family effort to restore the European economy. We are like the "Johnny Appleseed" of euros emitting them in small towns across France.

The day before we had climbed to the last of the Castle stronghold of the Cathar's to fall to The Roman Church. Montsegur

Here is a quick Youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXYyfCdiKaU&feature=related.

At this spot on 16th March 1244, 220 people were put to the stake for being Cathars and on Pentecost Sunday 2010 there were flowers on the marker remembering them, something to ponder as you catch your breathe climbing up to the 1200 meter top!

After the first 30 castle ruins you see you can start to get a little blase about them but way up in the hills we came across a little church that looked very old and we stopped to take pictures. It was small but was obviously still in use had a very interesting door and while we were looking at a woman came by to show it off. It had been established in 980 AD over a thousand years ago! Even Paris was a burg at that time yet way up in the hills a little village has made time stop and stand still.

But time does not stand still for a rental car on a holiday so we hopped in the car and started up the GPS and buckled up because the hill roads make surviving the weekend sort of chancy!