Pride in patirimony

The Catalans are very proud of their patrimony...For the third time in as many years I've taken a tour with Jean-Marc. The first two tours were in English, but on Thursday nights during the summer they make it a major event in French. The woman at the tourist office provided Rick with an English summary sheet and I added bits and pieces that he might have forgotten from last year's tour and/or find interesting.

I can almost keep straight the battles between the sons of Jacques Le Conquerer and the French and Spanish not to mention the different pirate attacks over the decades. I still would not want to take a test but I can give a mini tour.

And there were a few myths added in that I hadn't heard. Hercules allegedly came to the area with a beautiful woman. They slept together but in the morning he was gone (a bit like Scooby and Petite Cougar). The locals adopted her and she gave her name to Argelès. Of course there are stories such as it is named after a flower.

One of our first stops was a the church Notre-Dame del Prat. There's been a church on the site since the 900s. The church did appear on my cover for Murder in Argelès but the guide didn't know that. After all the novel is in English.

The church's altar is in the opposite geographical direction of altars in  most churches.



This tour had extras. A story teller told the group three tales. The first was how the yellow Catalan Flag came into being when a knight reached into the blood of fallen knight and with his four fingers marked the yellow flag with the four red stripes.

The second was about a visit to Argeles from the Perpignan Bishop. Wine played a big part.

A man, a dog and a beautiful woman made up the third story.

On the other side of the church, now a square built over an ancient cemetery, Catalan musicians waited for us and they explained the different traditional instruments before a mini concert. The door at the right of the photo is now used as a summer tourist office, but for years it also served as a prison.

We were given a course in the Sadane which looks simple and Rick and I did manage not to trip anyone as we tried it. I also learned the cobla that I'd heard about but couldn't define was the melange of instruments that sound like a tired child whining about not wanting to go to bed.

Finally we were treated to local sausage, wines and desserts. A man from Lyon tried to explain the difference to me between saucesse and sauscisson (sp?) but failed. It doesn't matter. They were all good all locally mad.

The cost for it all was 8 Euros/9.86 CHF/US$10.68/£6.80. And we got to keep out wine glasses.