by Glen Cowley
Aigues Mortes: the “Dead Waters!”
The name echoes ominous as if heralding some darkened castle from the Lord of the Rings; and the place does rise singular from the fen lands that are the Camargue in southern France. Yet there is no darkness weighing upon the shoulders this crusader city built as France’s first toe hold on the sunny Mediterranean.
It sits upon the horizon like a Cecil B. DeMille movie set but these ramparts and towers truly heard the tromping feet of grim faced, determined crusaders and the hum of medieval trade accommodated by the Mediterranean waters which lapped at its feet. Pass through the main gate, La Porte de la Gardette, and you emerge upon an ancient bricked street, Rue Jean Jaures, with arrow straight aim at the heart of the city, Place Saint Louis.
There is no better place to begin your exploration of this, too seemingly real, walled city. Here beneath the gaze of a serene statue of Saint Louis, actually King Louis IX of France, the city’s ascribed founder, you can sit under the shade of Plantain trees at one of the many outdoor cafes and ponder over the self-guided walking tour pamphlets available at the bordering tourist information centre.
The pious King Louis IX of France had no port access to the Mediterranean until he swung a deal in 1240 with the Abbey Brothers of Psalmody to get the fenlands upon which Aigues Mortes was to rise. His timing was ripe as in 1245 Pope Innocent IV called upon European powers to crusade in the Middle East. By 1248 he had his fortified town and port and set out upon his first crusade from these shores. Of the original fortifications only the singularly moated Tower of Constance remains.
Begun in 1240 and finished in 1250 the tower is the sole legacy of the original fort and has its own unique story in this storied town. It was known as Tour de Seigneur du Roi (King’s Tower) until it received its present name in the 14th century. From 1686 to 1768 the tower served as a prison for French Huguenots (Protestants) during the religious wars. Its most famous prisoner was Marie Durand who was imprisoned therein from 1730 until 1768, remaining true to her faith throughout.
In 1270 Louis once again led his crusader forces from Aigues Mortes reputedly taking service at the still standing Notre Dame de Sablon (Our Lady of the Sands), alongside Place Saint Louis, ere departing. It was his last foray as he died within months from typhus on the shores of North Africa. His new city however fared much better.
The first Notre Dame de Sablon on the site dated from 1183 and passed through varying incarnations until it was used by Saint Louis in 1248 for departing services. Its fortunes rose and fell during the later religious wars, its roof collapsing in 1634, but it was finally reconstructed in 1711. Today its doors welcome the faithful and the curious; affording the opportunity to stand in the quiet and breath in the history, perhaps to close your eyes and imagine the sounds of Louis’s pious entourage accepting religious blessings.
And when you are ready you can begin treading the streets of the fortified town noting how past and present merge so easily. History seeps from the street names – Rue Victor Hugo, Rue de la Republique, Rue du 14 Juillet and city gates La Tour des Bourguignons (tower of the Burgundians where bodies of massacred Burgundian troops were salted and stored to avoid disease), la Porte de l’Organeau (where ships tied up in the city’s harbour), La Porte des Moulins (where two mills used to occupy the double tower) and La Porte del’Arsenal
Visit La Chapelle des Penitents Gris (Grey) [TOP PHOTO] and La Chapelle des Penitents Blanc (White); ancient orders rooted in Christianity’s dim past. Their simplistic exteriors belie the more ornamental interiors.
The inside perimeter walk takes you by 10 fortified gates which present the opportunity to pass outside the walls and admire the magnitude of the fortification in its setting. Outside Porte de la Reine you can see the last remaining Glaciere (cold storage site) ; one of the original three constructed in the 17th century.
For the serious visitor there are walking tours of the entire ramparts and the singularly impressive Tour de Constance. Self guided audio tours are available at the admissions office at Place de la Republique near La Tour de Constance. The considerable rampart walk is interspersed with exhibits at varying towers and gates lending image and life to the long silent stone. From atop the ramparts you can view the long horizon of the Camargue with its pools and canals, most likely spying one of the many tour barges wending its way through a vast fenland rich with waterfowl (most particularly Flamant Rose – Flamingoes) and ranch-lands where Les Gardian (French Cowboys) on their unique, white Camargue horses tend to herds of the famous black bulls of the Camargue. That is a tour for another day. And to the south the horizon glistens with the Mediterranean now far removed from the days when port waters lapped near the rampart walls.
Crossing the only bridge spanning the moat surrounding La Tour de Constance brings you to the awe inspiring edifice which harkens back to the very beginnings of the Aigue Mortes fortress town. With the revocation of the Treaty of Nantes (a tolerance act allowing for French Protestants) in 1685 the tower began its long years as a prison. Exploring its bright rooms and walkways it takes some effort to recreate in mind the jailhouse conditions of so many years before. The tower rises above the rampart walls and is topped by an rooftop adorned with a beacon which once served the mariners as a lighthouse. From here you can see the encircled city in its entirety. Here, above the world, its long gone sentries could breath the light Mediterranean air likely much appreciated during odour rich Medieval era.
When Provence became part of France in 1481 Aigues Mortes lost its significance as France’s only eye on the Mediterranean to Marseille. Yet the town remained and comes down to us like a time capsule from the Medieval era. A place richly accommodating even under the press of tourism.
If You Go:
♦ Regular and frequent train and bus service is available to Aigue Mortes from Nimes.
♦ La Grau du Roi, on the Mediterranean, is within fifteen minutes on the train.
♦ Numerous Camargue tour boats, available on the canal, provide excursions through the Camargue, including Le Grau du Roi, visits to ranches where Les Gardian put on herding displays and the ever present flocks of flamingoes.
Tours to Aigues Mortes Now Available:
Private Provence Tour: la Camargue, Les-Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer and Aigues-Mortes
Camargue 4×4 Safari from Aigues Mortes (in a privatized vehicle !)
Private Camargue Day Trip to Saint Gilles du Gard, Les Saintes Maries de la Mer and Aigues-Mortes from Arles
About the author:
Since 1994 Glen Cowley has parlayed his interest in sports, travel and history into both books and articles. The author of two books on hockey, a booklet on French Canadian influence in British Columbia’s history and over sixty published articles (including sports, biographies and travel) he continues to explore perspectives in time and place wherever travels take him. From the varied landscapes of British Columbia to Eastern Canada and the USA, the British Isles, Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Greece he has found ample fodder for features. A return to Europe in 2014 is guaranteed to reveal new tales to tell.
All photos are by Glen Cowley:
Church of the Gray Penitents
Notre Dame de Sablon – the Crusader Church
Place Saint Louis with the statue of King Louis IX still holding court
One of the gates of the fortress city
Atop the city ramparts
Perhaps Italians might disagree with me when I use this term, since this, the Cimitero Acattolico, is the last resting place for those who could not, or would not be buried in the traditional Catholic cemeteries here in the heart of Roman Catholicism. But hallowed it is, nonetheless, since this patch of land, overgrown with weeds and flowers, contains the remains of the some of the most important figures of the last few centuries: local dissidents and those from other lands, ex-pats, writers, revolutionaries, atheists and Jews who, famous or not, all came to rest together here in this painfully beautiful monument to non-conformity. Antonio Gramsci, Gregory Corso, and a cat named Romeo are some among this motley crew, though none of them hold higher places in the echelons of artistic memory than the two greats of English Romanticism buried here: John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley. How could it not be raining, then? It was as if the luminous Roman sky had been replaced for a moment by a melancholy English one, pausing to weep a bit for two lost sons, entombed amidst the ruins, far far away.
Though their names are often intertwined, John Keats and Percy Shelley came to Italy for very different reasons. Shelley, the rebellious Etonian from an Aristocratic family, was leading a wild life, one easier experienced abroad. He was best friends with Lord Byron and romantically entangled with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (turned Shelley), the author of Frankenstein. His lifestyle, radical views, and writing had brought him not only fame, but also infamy. Like many writers and artists of his day, he was attracted to the warmth of the European south, to its classical pagan origins, and to that fact that he could live freely there, away from the scandals that plagued him in England. Keats, on the other hand, came to Italy to die.
Besides the cruelty inherent in this statement, the irony was palpable too. Keats’ medical training, no matter how practical it may have been, could do nothing to stop what was then an almost incurable disease, tuberculosis. Not long after his brother died, it became clear that John Keats had contracted the illness too. Knowing that he would not survive the English winter, his friends gathered whatever money they could in order to send him to a gentler climate, a last ditch attempt to save his life.
Shelley was buried in the same cemetery a mere year later, the victim of a violent Mediterranean storm that drowned him while sailing off the coast of northern Italy. A book of John Keats’ poetry was found in his pocket. Shelley’s cremated remains (all but his heart, which was kept by Mary Shelley and eventually buried in England) can be found under a small flat tombstone a short walk from Keats’, bearing the Latin “Cor Cordium” (heart of hearts), and a quote from Shakespeare’s The Tempest: “Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change is to something rich and strange.”
On my own visit, while I sat there overcome with tears, I heard a rustling from the wall above me. From out of one of the vines came a black and white cat, who jumped down onto the bench, and then snuggled up onto my lap. Through my own teary-eyed haze and quixotic imagination, it was easy to believe that in that moment I was being visited by the spirit of the poet himself. Of course, as I got up to walk to Shelley’s grave, straight ahead and to the right, I realised that the cat was just one among many strays who live in the cemetery, and to whose livelihood you can also donate money. However, the impression stayed with me, there on that wet rainy day, as I wandered alone through the grounds of the Cimitero Acattolico. And I emphasize the word “alone”, because visitors here are many fewer than in other famous cemeteries such as Père Lachaise or in Roman tourist spots like Saint Peter’s. When Oscar Wilde visited in 1877, he called it “the holiest place in Rome”. There, breaking bread with the dead, it’s not hard to see why.
Visiting the Air India memorial is not easy, and the usual response from people in Ireland was “never heard of it” and occasionally, “I remember something about that. When did it happen?” The memorial is not on any tour route nor do tour buses get close so I organized my visit through the hotel in Killarney where I was staying. Killarney is the largest town in the area and a major southern Ireland tourist spot. A local cabbie, who does customized tours, offered a flat rate for the day. The other option, and cheaper choice, would have been to rent a car.
The memorial includes a well kept with a sundial that commemorates the day and hour of jumbo jet’s explosion in the air. There is a low, stone, semi-circle wall with the names of the victims that appears to cup the sundial. (Picture 4)A tidy garden maintained by the village borders the path to the memorial, which is oriented towards the breezy, wide-open ocean.
At one point, we had to stop for a flock of sheep across the road which gave the weathered sheepherder time to walk up to the van. He quickly fired off about a dozen personal questions in a sing-songy Irish accent including asking where were we from, where were we going and was I married. Driver Walsh had predicted we were going to be there a long time when the sheepherder headed towards us. Walsh was greatly relieved when another car came around the bend and the sheepherder had new people to question.
The old spa village of Furnas is our tranquil retreat for a few days before we head to the capital, Ponta Delgada. Here in Furnas is the delightful Terra Nostra Park, a botanical garden created in the 18th century by the American Consul Thomas Hickling. Walking the avenues and winding paths of these gardens we pass monuments, grottos, koi carp ponds, and a whimsical area of animals carved in stone – my favourite is a laughing gorilla stood with hands on hips. Also in the grounds an ochre coloured geothermal lake overlooked by Hickling’s house is popular with many visitors for a restorative swim. Perhaps less popular is the yellowing of swimming gear from the water. I opt not to ruin my swim shorts and instead enjoy an hour lazily swimming in the hotel’s otherwise empty indoor pool.
The track could be a tricky ascent when wet and muddy, and is best tackled in dry weather. A few minutes hard walk is amply rewarded by a view across the verdant valley in one direction, and to the other Furnas lake with Jose do Canto’s chapel visible at the far side. A reminder of the volcanic nature of this land is the eggy aroma of sulphur wafting up from the fumaroles below. A young bull chained up nearby is less than enthralled by our presence. His distressed calls eventually signal an end to our viewing. We start the trek back to the village in search of somewhere to get a cold drink.
After a mellow few days in Furnas we head to the other side of the island where Ponta Delgada lies in the south-west corner. Here trappings of modern life mix happily with traditional Portuguese architecture – monochrome stone buildings of whitewash edged with black basalt. Squares and narrow cobbled streets in the old part of town can become crowded. So it’s with some relief that we find the drivers to be mostly tolerant of pedestrians.
We arrive at the best vantage point, Vista do Rei, where all the brochure pictures of the caldera are taken from. It’s located just off the main road opposite an abandoned concrete hotel, just before the road heads down to the village. Our reward is a superb panorama of the caldera: its twin lakes Azul and Verde, and the village of Sete Cidades nestled on the flat land to the western side. Giant blobs of cloud shadows move across the murky green and blue lakes like giant Rorschach tests. From this spot the adventurous can embark on a long walk around the ridge of the caldera on a narrow path edged by vertiginous drops through trees and other foliage.
I settled in on the first two days, and on Saturday visited Montjuic Park for the marathon expo; to collect my race number and timing chip. The Museum of Arts towers over the front of the park; above cascading fountains framed by rows of steps. Musicians and giant dolls entertained in the square at the bottom of the cascading fountain.
I returned in the night to watch the Magic Fountain show. Every fifteen minutes between 7pm and 9pm the circular fountain at the foot of the hill seems to be awakened by music, spraying water high in the air while changing colours.
After about four miles the circuit took us past Camp Nou; the 98,000-capacity home of FC Barcelona is the largest stadium in Europe. That night I joined 68,000 people at the stadium to watch Barcelona beat Rayo Vallecano 3-1. Climbing to a seat about five rows from the top of the 150-feet-high stadium was hard work, but worth it, with the sensation of emerging into the steep-sided seating above the bright green pitch reminding me of the Lost Horizon story of a Shangri-La hidden in the Himalayan mountains.
Antoni Gaudi was Modernisme’s most famous artist, and a couple of miles later we passed the movement’s crowning glory. La Sagrada Familia is still under construction a century later. The 13,000-capacity cathedral’s size distinguished it from other cathedrals while passing, and on closer inspection so does its blending of nature into the design. Gaudi liked curves rather than straight lines, claiming there were none of the latter in nature; and some spire-tops are decorated with balls of fruit-colours.
The sky cleared the next day, and temperatures rose into the 60s Fahrenheit. I took the train out to Monistrol de Montserrat, and hiked to the Santa Maria de Montserrat monastery. To the north-west, snow-capped Pyrenees signified the border with France, while the Mediterranean Sea was visible to the east.
The next day I returned to Montjuic Park, going past the Arts Museum to the Olympic Stadium, which brought back memories of the 1992 Games. I walked past torch-pillars and the Telefonica tower to the tree-filled green zone leading up to Barcelona’s castle. Cannons point up and down the coast and there are great views of the city all the way to Tibidabo Mountain, overlooking Barcelona on the western horizon. The castle has a chequered past, being used to hold and execute prisoners in the civil war and other twentieth-century conflicts.
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