Exploring the Pyrenees, Part IV:In Barcelona

Detmar’s selfie of us on the bus
(see near bottom below)

By James T. Carney

From Berga we were all driven to the Barcelona airport, where Detmar and I took leave of our traveling companions and headed downtown to spend the rest of the day and the next two days touring Barcelona, which probably has the world’s biggest collection of pickpockets and thieves in Europe. In one restaurant, we witnessed a woman who had gone to the restroom return to her table only to discover that her purse had been stolen.

Exploring the Pyrenees, Part III-B: Following the Cathars in the Bellver de Cerdanya & Gósol areas

By James T. Carney

The third day was supposed to be the most difficult of the hike, so I decided to take the van to Bellver de Cerdanya, and Julie and Peter opted to go with me. Bellver de Cerdanya is in a major valley, with good farmland, in the Pyrenees, which differs from the Alps in having many fertile valleys. (The Cathars at one point had destroyed one of the orthodox churches in the area, which suggests that the area was strongly pro-Cathar.)

Exploring the Pyrenees, Part III-A: Following the Cathars in the Comus and Mérens-les-Vals areas

Photo by Detmar

By James T. Carney

From Montségur we hiked to Comus, along a path that was probably used by the Cathars, since many of them did travel by way of Comus, which is now a very small village of maybe 1,000 people.

Exploring the Pyrenees, Part II:In the Languedoc

By James T. Carney

On my way to the Pyrenees last September, I flew to Marseilles (the most crime-ridden city in Europe) to visit my first cousin, Bruce, who is an expatriate and has lived abroad all of his adult life – first as a petroleum engineer, second as an executive for a company running a worldwide chain of shoe-repair shops, and finally as an auditor for a hotel in Nîmes, in the Languedoc, to which he commuted by train from his wife’s ancestral home in Alès.

Exploring the Pyrenees, Part I:A Wall

By James T. Carney

In 1710 – oops, you can tell this will be a long story – after King Louis XIV of France’s grandson had been named King of Spain, potentially uniting the two countries and ending a rivalry that had dominated Europe for two centuries, Louis declared, “Il y’na plus de Pyrenees,” or “There are no more Pyrenees,” referring to the mountain chain that separated France from Spain. Well, I have news for his departed Majesty, “Il y’a plus de Pyrenees,” and I have climbed them – stumbled, crawled, and fallen across them.