Jule's Hikoi: 48 floors

Just like the Harbourside residences in Sydney or Docklands tower 2 in Melbourne or the Leadenhall building (cheese grater) in London or Tokyu Kabukicho Tower in Tokyo or the Tour Bioclimatique in Paris or the Conde Nest Building in New York. So quite tall buildings, all with 48ish floors of stairs.

I only bring this up because my activity thingy on my phone registered 48 as the number of floors we climbed last week when we climbed up to Montsegur in the Pyrenees. Or to be more precise, drove to the village of Monsegur and then climbed from there up to the Chateau Montsegur to visit what remains of the stronghold where the Cathars withstood a long siege by the French crusaders. This from the site above: "In 1243, at the head of an army of 10,000 men, Hugues des Arcis, seneschal of the King of France in Carcassonne, and Pierre Amiel, Bishop of Narbonne, laid siege to the fortress. This siege lasted approximately 11 months, until its tragic end: the besieged surrendered on March 16, 1244, and more than 230 Cathars, unwilling to renounce their faith, were burned at the stake."

A tragic end to people just trying the honour their beliefs and not causing harm to others. Oh that we learned from this history and apply it to today's conflicts. It seems not, on all fronts.

The village of Montsegur is up in the hills, up narrow roads with hairpin bends. Quite challenging for a first time out driving in a while. We don't have a car here so our lovely builder Andrea loaned us one of hers for the next few weeks. I have a few adventures planned. The weather here has cooled dramatically with rain and cloudy days and the tourist season is in it's fringe phase. That means it's much quieter here with more older tourists and some of the restaurants closing for the season. It doesn't mean the end of things to do or festivals. Like the wine festival we enjoyed last weekend. The one with the best music and dancing out in the fresh air in Place Carnot. While 'tasting' wine - by the glass and bottle. It was a slow wander home.

At the end of this month we're attending a concert, classical by candlelight, in a local church and then we're off on the train to Lyon to see LP in concert. But I digress.

Montsegur and that climb. Unlike those buildings above the climb was not up inside stairs but up a path wandered forever by the folks living and under siege up in the amazing stone fortress. At the bottom of the path is the place where the Cathar's walked to their death. More than 230 of them. Some recanted and lived. All lost their fortress home. I'm a big reader and am rereading the Kate Mosse series set in the area. Appropriate to have reached the end of Labyrinth in the days before we visited where the ending was set. It was the motivation to start our exploration of the Cathar history here at the hardest place to reach.

The path up is not for the faint hearted starting with a stepped path and quickly turning into a rocky scramble with very slippery feet polished rocks to negotiate. Walking in the steps of history, visiting the remains of the fortress and the outstanding views made it all worthwhile. And best of all we had the place to ourselves so we could sit on the stone wall and reflect on the history; what it might have been like to live there; what it might have been like to both withstand the siege and perpetrate it. What the people must have been experiencing in this bloodiest time of religious persecution.

The walk down was even trickier, negotiating slippery stones, big steps and unforgiving drops to the valley. I'm not the mountain goat I used to be lol. Advice we should have taken, drive up the the start of the walk rather than parking and walking up from the village. The beer and panini's provided by the village café were very welcomed when we finally made it back. The drive home was uneventful and the evening very quiet as we recovered. As Jules commented, 'nothing a glass of red can't fix' as I fell asleep on the couch.