This is another tour in our "so you think you've been everywhere" category: " The Pilgrims' Way in Southwest France" encompassing the dramatic architecture and wild scenery of the Aveyron and the rolling hills of Gascony.

ALERT! HISTORY CONTENT (sorry but it's necessary) 1010 years of tourism...The year 1000 or thereabouts marked the beginning of several centuries of Christian crusades and pilgrimages in Western Europe, and whereas the Crusaders can hardly be called tourists, the pilgrims who traveled thousands of miles across Europe certainly were. After the expected Apocalypse of the year 1000 failed to materialize, Christian Europe breathed a collective sigh of relief and the pessimistic zeitgeist turned to fervent enthusiasm for Christian expression. Individuals, towns, regions and even countries rivaled one another in showing the extent of their faith by the awesomeness of their religious buildings as well as the abjectness of their worship. As Europe emerged from the Dark ages, three great pilgrimage destinations emerged to dominate the consciousness of the people: Rome, Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela in Spain. It has been estimated that in certain years one-tenth of Europe’s population was either on a pilgrimage, or engaged in servicing the pilgrim trade. The Medieval Church was, in effect, the first global travel agency.

In order to muster enough Christian fervor to push back the Muslim occupiers of Spain, the Catholic Church declared that some bones discovered in a field in northern Spain were those of St. James the Apostle, and henceforth the shrine in which they were buried in Santiago de Compostela would be one of the three great Christian pilgrimage destinations. To get there, three main routes threaded themselves along the major river valleys of the Loire and the Rhone and through the mountain barriers of the Massif Central of France and the Pyrenees into Spain. Pilgrims from all over Christian Europe traveled huge distances to reach holy destinations, and France, the most Christian country of all at that time, was the country that most pilgrims had to cross on their way. Visiting some of these routes today, one can only conjecture that either the Pilgrim chose them as a penance or that they simply enjoyed scenery because they pass over some of the most mountainous and spectacular countryside that France has to offer.

Along these routes the Church built cathedrals, monasteries, chapels and souvenir stands to service the pilgrims’ spiritual needs. Hostels, inns and eating places also sprung up in towns and villages along the way to service their bodily needs, and the order of warrior monks, called the Knights Templar, became the first Highway Patrol, protecting these lucrative pilgrims from bandits and murderers. After a couple of centuries the passion for pilgrimages died out and was replaced in this region by the rise of rebellious church sub-groups and sects such as the Cathars who were severely repressed and suppressed by the Inquisition… but that is another story. 

Our fall 2010 photo tour visits two distinct regions that, 1010 years ago, were bustling with travelers, but which now are practically unknown to our modern day pilgrim equivalent - The American Tourist. The ancient Pilgrims' Route to Santiago de Compostela crosses several of the eight departments in the southwest of France that make up the Midi-Pyrenees region before surmounting the Pyrenees mountains and entering northern Spain. Situated between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean in southern France, the Midi-Pyrenees is a huge, remote and largely unspoiled part of France. Once the bustling and dynamic location of the sophisticated, artistic Troubadour culture, the region’s wealth and poetry as well as its language, Langue d’Oc and a large percentage of its population, were virtually wiped out by successive waves of victorious northerners who suppressed local ideas and the rebellious religious sect of the Cathars.

This ancient region maybe outside of the main tourist orbit, leaving the spotlight to its more famous neighbors Provence and the Dordogne, but the outstanding kaleidoscope of landscapes, including mountains, limestone plateaux, deep gorges, river valleys, forests and vines plus the immense wealth of medieval architecture that the region enjoys, offers the photo-traveler a stimulating menu of unique images as well as the chance to discover somewhere new in travel destinations. The religious significance of these routes and the towns and villages that line them is now no longer the main reason we visit them, and you don’t have to be Christian to appreciate this outstanding region any more than you have to be Hindu to admire the Taj Mahal. However the buildings, rocks and vistas of the region exude an unmistakable mystical spirituality.  Our tour will not be a walking tour, which would take too much time. We also do not cover the whole route, it is far too long and it would take too many hours traveling in the van to cover it. We will visit the medieval towns, villages and scenery that offer the most beautiful and interesting photographic opportunities, including several in the "Most Beautiful Villages of France" category (this region has 10 of them, more than any other region in France) as well as the usual secret places that we discover uniquely for you.

Some of the original pilgrim routes are now paved over and used by road traffic, but a good proportion of them still exist as primitive pathways, many of which have been refurbished and clearly marked out as “Grand Randonee” hiking trails. Indeed, hiking one of these trails is now a popular vacation activity in France, and medieval mountain-top hostels and shelters have been redecorated to provide shelter for modern day pilgrims. In 2000 the Pilgrims Routes of Santiago de Compostela were added to the List of World Heritage Sites, and thus their glories were officially recognized. We took a group to this region in 1999 at the end of the last millennium and it is time to go back to find mystical and spiritual comfort as we say goodbye to turbulent decade.

There are few places in the world that can describe themselves as being both very wild and delicately civilized, but the area of south west France across which the medieval Pilgrims' Way routes laboriously climb and fall fits this description exactly. Like many regions of France that are situated outside of the Parisian gravitational pull, the Midi-Pyrenees is an area of immense beauty that seems to be trapped in a time warp. Ignored for centuries by the centralized government in Paris it is only in recent years that regions such as the Aveyron, the Tarn, the Lot and Gascony have been awakened by the kiss of tourism and government de-centralization, and have emerged, yawning and blinking into the light. This long slumber has meant that these regions escaped the concrete modernistic horrors of 1960s architecture and have remained relatively unchanged for hundreds of years. The recent construction of roads and autoroutes has made the regions more easily accessible, but most of the towns and villages are as medieval as they were to the first tourists to visit them 1,010 years ago. Because of the enormous beauty of the mountains and gorges around them, the villages have become magnets for colonies of artists and potters who moved to the beautiful villages, restored the houses and now give the region its artistic reputation, an echo of the lost Troubadours.  

There is a large variety of landscapes from mountain vistas, windy plateaux of the Aubrac and high grassy pastures to deep valleys full of beech trees or sweet chestnuts, dramatic deep gorges, and fields of sunflowers. My favorite landscape photographer, Charlie Waite, considers these landscapes the best in France.The region is most famous for its ravishing river valleys and gorges. Indeed rivers and bridges will play a large part in our tour as we will visit many of the riverside towns and villages dotted along the banks of three of France's greatest rivers, the Lot, the Aveyron and the Tarn. For centuries many of these villages were cut off from each other like trading posts along the Amazon, accessible only by boat, or by foot along the pilgrims' paths. Now happily they are connected by roads and bridges and we will discover the oldest medieval bridges in the region as well as the spectacular and modern marvel of bridge engineering at the Millau Viaduct, which, even if it doesn't appeal to you photographically will certainly wake you from your medieval reveries while driving across it.  

The architecture of the villages vary from gray-blue granite to red brick to colored sandstone, and roof styles vary from slate tiled to red Roman tiles, for this region is at the very frontier between the north and the south. Ever present is the ghost of the Middle Ages, seen in the fortified hilltop villages, the outline of castles on the horizon, the lay-out of the towns with narrow streets, arcaded market squares and thick stone walls. The pilgrim era left in its wake a fine array of Romanesque art, architecture, churches and cathedrals, more examples of which are found here than any other region of France.

After pick up at Toulouse airport we will drive north-west into the rugged Massif Central to just outside the ancient pilgrim town of Rodez where we will stay for five nights at a three-star hotel complete with free wi-fi and swimming pool. From here we will drive out daily in all directions to explore the villages and landscapes along this part of the Pilgrims' Way, taking time to drive further south to photograph the famous new Millau bridge. The nearby upper Lot valley around which the first part of our tour is based is home to a photogenic string of intact medieval villages once pilgrim stopping points on the route de Compostela: Entraygues, Estaing, Espalion, St. Eulalie d'Olt and St. Geniez d'Olt to name the most famous. A little further north lies the uplands of the Aubrac, a windswept moody region similar to Ireland, crossed by dry stone walls and dotted with abandoned shepherds huts called burons. Later in the tour we will visit other pilgrim villages and towns such as Conques, Cordes, Najac, Belcastel, Villefranche-la-Rouergue, Sauveterre-la-Rouergue - exquisite places all of them. Cordes is especially lovely with perpendicular winding streets, beautifully preserved Gothic mansions and picturesque views. Wrapped around a conical hill in a cloak of steep cobbled alleyways, mellow stone and mossy Roman tiles, the whole town is classed as a historical monument.

The last part of our photo tour will be spent further south-west in the romantic rolling hills of the ancient region known as Gascony. This is one of those out-of-the-way, lost corners of Europe that we at Europa Photogenica love so much. It is a relatively unknown and inaccessible region with the lowest density population of any region in France. Main roads to other more important areas such as Bordeaux, Toulouse and the Mediterranean coast skirt around its edges and basically, much of Gascony is on the way to nowhere, which is just what we want for a unique photo tour. Gascony is a profoundly rural and peaceful area, with a tranquil, dreamlike landscape, and is often called: “the Tuscany of France”. Much of it is rolling, hilly country; the roads follow the crests of a chain of hills with magnificent views of more hills rippling off into the distant Pyrenees. Here every road seems to be a back road lined with poplar trees, colorful fields or vines. This region of France has enormous character and vignettes of old France are to be found around every corner.

With no towns of any size it is the least populated region of the whole of France and over 60% of the working population is engaged in small-scale agriculture, living the perfect rural existence on hearty local produce. The hilltops and valleys are dotted with fine old crumbling farmsteads, Gallic-Roman villas ornamented with mosaics, and medieval abbeys. Clustering around every pond are flocks of fat and happy ducks or geese that waddle beneath trees laden with plums or walnuts. Many of the small towns and villages are medieval fortified “bastides” of great charm some dating back to the 13th century. There are over 300 bastides in Gascony, some almost as big as a town. Most are small with beautiful arcaded village plazas built with half-timbered, ochre colored facades brightened with flowers in pots and boxes. Many have been saved from decrepitude by private restoration projects, and some are just little arcaded squares lost in the woods that never got more than half built in the Middle Ages and have been declining genteelly ever since. The narrow dusty streets of these quiet medieval places echo with the voices of hundreds of years of history and tradition. The farmers in their flat Gascon berets farm in the same way and eat the same regional dishes as their fathers and grandfathers before them. On market days, the farmers drive into town in beat-up old Citroens, berets on their heads, sometimes accompanied by an old dog, and spend the post-market afternoon talking to each other around shaded cafe tables while drinking the local fire-water, or playing boules in the village square. These classic French scenes belong to a by-gone era and are getting more and more difficult to find.

Autumn is a good time to visit the Lot, the Aveyron, the Tarn and Gascony. The days are fine but not too hot and the mellow fruitfulness of the countryside, suffused in a warm, honey-colored light looks particularly beautiful. The region enthusiastically embraces the colors and traditions of autumn, the geraniums that decorate every village are still in bloom and the rich and fertile land slowly turns orange, amber, rust, red and yellow as the autumn approaches.

These regions are visually stunning and historically fascinating. JOIN US and experience yet another Europe Photogenica unique photo tour.

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Barbara's images of Gascony coming soon