Cultural Landscapes of the Midi Pyrénées & Dordogne

25 September - 10 October 2013

Tour Highlights

This tour, led by Dr. Shelley Meagher travels across the great southern plain between the Pyrénées and the Massif Central, into the heavily wooded highlands of the Auvergne, and down the superb river valleys of the Lot, Tarn and Dordogne. 

• • Tour through one of the most scenically wonderful regions of France, dominated by the lovely river valleys of the Lot, Tarn and Dordogne;
• • Make a special study of the fascinating Late Stone Age caves of the region with visits to a number of original caves as well as the fascinating Lascaux II, a facsimile of the world famous painted cave at Lascaux;
• • Visit Cathar and Templar cities and castles, where you will learn about the extraordinary Cathar ‘heresy’ and the Albigensian Crusade that destroyed the Cathars;
• • Explore some of the grandest pilgrim churches, at Toulouse, Moissac, Conques and Périgueux, built on the great medieval pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela;
• • Learn about the development of unique medieval frontier towns, bastides, by visiting some of the most interesting, splendid examples in France - this region has by far the highest concentration of France’s most beautiful and historic villages and towns;
• • Amble through local weekly markets, held in market squares dominated by lovely old market halls;
• • Savour the delights of local cooking in a number of local restaurants;
• • Visit a number of châteaux that were once castles defending French or Plantagenet territory during the Hundred Years War but later became majestic palaces surrounded by fine gardens;
• • Sample award-winning wines and eat lunch at Château La Dominique Vineyard in the UNESCO listed Saint-Emilion district.

About the Tour

This tour gives you a thorough, varied and meaningful experience of the great plain between the Pyrénées and the Massif Central, and of three superb river valleys: of the Lot, Tarn and Dordogne. In the southern part of the Midi Pyrénées region we explore the culture of Mediterranean France and of the Cathars who were vanquished by the Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229). The tour then passes through distinctive agricultural landscapes to visit prehistoric caves, medieval fortified towns and castles, châteaux, gardens, Romanesque pilgrim churches and local markets, all set against a rich green curtain of extensive woodland. Unspoilt and scenically dramatic, isolated yet subject to conflicts like the Albigensian Crusade and the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453), the Dordogne’s landscapes are inflected by bastides (fortified towns) which we visit, such as Najac and Cordes-sur-Ciel; they give a vivid image of medieval France. Our journey incorporates the exquisite pilgrim church of Conques, the remarkable fortress-cathedral and fine Toulouse-Lautrec Museum in Albi, the artist's hometown. In the restored provincial town of Sarlat, home of the district's famous goose market, and throughout the tour, you will encounter a rich variety of local domestic architecture, each town with its own very distinctive picturesque dwellings. The tour also incorporates delightful gardens each making its special contribution to the richness, variety, character and charm of this luscious area. The tour has also been designed to visit some towns on their weekly market days, where you may purchase food for lunchtime picnics. A climax to the culinary delights of the tour is a wine tasting of a famous local drop at Saint-Émilion.

Much of the material culture you experience in the Dordogne region originated in the agricultural revolution of the Middle Ages, when the forests of France were cut back to provide arable land for a growing population. This region's role in the history of humanity, however, began long before this. It was at Cro-Magnon in the Dordogne that the earliest evidence of Homo Sapiens (Cro-Magnon Man) was found. The greatest archaeological discoveries, the cave paintings of the region, belong to a later time, the Magdalenian Period (c.16,000 BC). Inspired by finds in the region, the French created the study of Prehistory in the mid-19th century, and the valley of the Vézère, which runs south to meet the Dordogne, provided vast riches for this study. Lascaux has been closed since the 1960s, but accompanied by local experts, we shall visit a number of caves like Font-de-Gaume which are accessible by appointment, and also some state-of-the-art interpretation centres that explain the genesis of the region’s wonderful Late Ice Age culture.

Historical Background to the Tour

This tour travels through three regions of France, Midi-Pyrénées, Auvergne and Aquitaine. The southern reaches of the Midi-Pyrénées and Aquitaine comprise a broad plain that crosses the European peninsula in the shadow of the high Pyrénées to the south. Their northern areas, such as the Dordogne, are dominated by uplands cut through by the deep river valleys of the Lot, Tarn and Dordogne. Much of the Auvergne consists of the thickly wooded heights of the Massif Central, also cut through by deep river valleys.

The southern plain, watered by the Garonne, the Gironde and their tributaries, facilitates easy passage from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Its history and culture have been shaped by its links to the Mediterranean; its language – Occitan - for example, is quite different from that of the north, with elements imported from Islamic Iberia by the medieval troubadours. Invaded and colonised by peoples as diverse as the Celts, Iberians, Romans, Visigoths and Arabs, it evolved polities such as the County of Toulouse that throve on Mediterranean trade and jealously guarded their freedom from ambitious northern dynasties like the Capetians. It was on the slopes of the Pyrénées and on the rich southern plain that the Cathars built their communities. Catharism was a dualist religion that derived ultimately from Persian Zoroastrianism in the thought of the 3rd century Gnostic, Manes. The Bulgarian Bogomils transmitted his ‘Manichean’ belief that the world was a battleground of palpable good and evil to Europe. Their heirs, the Cathars, saw the material world as irredeemably corrupt, and formed communities – of ‘perfecti’ – that eschewed the carnal world, their abstinence contrasting awkwardly with the abuses of the organised Church. Not all Cathars were ‘perfecti’. They could also be ordinary followers of the Creed who supported the ‘perfecti’ materially and were loud in their criticism of Church abuses. The Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229) to stamp out this heresy gave St Louis (Louis IX) and his general, Simon de Montfort, an excuse to incorporate these rich southern lands into the French Royaume.

Further North, in the western part of the Auvergne (Massif Central), our tour travels through what was in the past some of the most inaccessible country in France, prized by musicians, historians, literati and artists for its pristine folk culture, untouched by industrial progress; we think of Marie-Joseph Canteloube de Malaret’s lovely collection, Songs of the Auvergne (1923-30).

In the Middle Ages, when the Roman Empire collapsed and the population of Europe dropped by some two-thirds, much of the Continent reforested itself. In the Later Middle Ages, when population recovery and steep growth led to a land hunger, these isolated regions were recolonised. The northernmost regions through which our tour travels were a frontier zone between civilization and wilderness, tamed by local nobles who built daunting castles and colonial towns called bastides. The local population was forced to live within these bastides not only for protection but also so that its agricultural and trade activity could generate taxes for the towns’ founders. Bastides were often regular in plan with a large market square at their centres; they are the distant precursors of later frontier towns, such as those in the Americas and British Empire.

In the 14th and 15th centuries this wild region, that had known so many wars, was the frontier in the greatest contest between what were later understood as the French and English monarchies, the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet (also known as House of Anjou). Both monarchies also built bastides to protect their lands against their adversaries in this long contest for the French Crown. With the triumph of the French, the region was finally integrated into what we now know as France, but the urge for independence never quite left the south, resurfacing in struggles like the wars of religion and the French Revolution. The political geography of the region had nevertheless changed, and a number of medieval castles were transformed in the 17th and 18th centuries, into richly decorated châteaux surrounded by stately formal gardens.

This history of constant contest between north and south, between Mediterranean and northern culture, different religious persuasions, and between ambitious dynasties, has left a rich imprint on the region’s heritage and culture. But its fascinating history does not begin at the end of antiquity, for the deep valleys we visit also harbour the magnificent art of Stone Age cave dwellers. The discovery of these extraordinarily naturalistic rock paintings and engravings, hidden deep in womb-like caverns, literally gave birth to the study of human Prehistory in 19th and early 20th century France. The extraordinary representations of the great herds of bison, aurochs, wild horses and other animals that roamed the region are thought by some to be linked to hunting through the metaphorical capture of the quarry’s spirit in painted and sculpted images that were ‘attacked’ by prospective hunters. The paintings, made between 40,000 and c.15,000 BC, seem to have ceased when the earth warmed at the end of the last Ice Age, and the great herds these artists had depicted and hunted moved north to grazing lands freed by the receding ice.