Spending a night in an old jail

The six-room hotel we found in Mirepoix http://www.ot-mirepoix.fr/ goes back to the 14th century when it was jail. http://www.maisondesconsuls.com/hotel.php although much has been done to it since then. Now it is a three-star hotel. Mark with an English K nor Marc with a French c welcomed us.

The town is also medieval http://www.ot-mirepoix.fr/ and I even had a character from Mirepoix in my novel Heretics and Lovers.

Barbara’s and my room was called the Chambre du Marquis. The big bed was surrounded by curtains, the small bed doubled as a couch in front of the fireplace. The armoire was an antique. The floors were a Spanish tile and the ceilings still had the original beams on 11-foot ceilings. Our view was the square and a gothic church spire. Robin and Ruth had the same view from their Chambre du Marchéchal.

However when we went out to eat we walked under the wooden arcade that ran the length of the street on the square. “Look,” Robin said. We followed his finger to the hand carved wooden gargoyles that lined the arcade. On the street side there were two other rows of carved wooden gargoyles. The top row was harder to distinguish because wind and rain had worn them away, but the lower row was sheltered and therefore protected and better preserved.

The next morning we woke to the sound of metal as merchants on the marché put up their stands. With over 200 stands, it was one of the largest marchés I have found in France.

Having spent lots and lots of time staying in chains during business trips, the idea of any place that it totally unique, is a pleasure. It is impossible to make a chain out of a hotel that began life as a jail seven centuries before.