Cathar Chateau at Minerve, on-shore visit from luxury hotel barge Athos
History of the Cathars while Cruising with luxury hotel barge Athos
Minerve is one of the most memorable hilltop towns that has been made famous for its Cathar past. On the countless times I've taken tourists here I very often hear that in spite of Minerve’s much smaller scale, Athos passengers enjoyed the experience more than the Medieval Cite of Carcassonne. As Minerve was the site of a pretty gruesome siege against the Cathar sect in the 14thC, I can only speculate that people are so overcome by the intensely beautiful setting, that they are able to come away with a feeling that the past has made peace with the land.
Minerve sits perched between two deep gorges: the Brian on one side and the Cesse on the other. They converge and wind their way through the craggy, vineyard-covered landscape creating a natural moat, which surrounds the village. Two bridges give access over the gorge and into the isolated village: the “Old Bridge” (Circa?? no-one knows) and the “New Bridge”, (a mere 200-years old).
Is the visit worth a week’s luxury hotel barge cruise? Definitely.
visit to Cathar Chateau at Minerve, Dove sculpture
Fresh fruit stalls at Les Halles, the covered food market in Narbonne
Athos guests tour the Covered Food Market in Narbonne
Athos is into her last weeks of the 2010 season. It never fails to surprise me how all of us (onboard crew and me at home in the office) have our internal timers set to the last second of each season. It also never fails to surprise me how, after 21 years of this, we continue to come up with different ways of tweaking our program to improve passengers’ holidays and give the crew a little boost of energy now and then.
Chez Bebelle
This year, our clever-clogs Tour Guide, Lydia, came up with the excellent suggestion of an authentic market-lunch with passengers. This would provide Chef and the onboard hostess with a one-meal breather, and more importantly, Athos passengers would experience a meal off the barge, while having a taste of French produce cooked right in front of their eyes.
Lydia decided to take everyone to Les Halles, Narbonne.
The Narbonne covered food market is a feast for the senses.
The long corridor through the centre of the building bustles with people, patisseries on either side as you enter, fruit and vegetable stalls piled high with bright fruit and greens, flower stalls with rustically organised bouquets in pails, and found by the nose first – the numerous fish stalls down at the far end. Having lived in the Languedoc for 13 years now, I still consider this one of the most stimulating and amusing places to visit!
Visit in the Narbonne Covered market and lunch Chez Bebelle
A Typical French lunch at the Food Market
After chatting with Rugby-loving patron Gilles Belzons, (nicknamed Bebelle, and voila restaurant name “Chez Bebelle”) and making the necessary arrangements, Lydia shepherded her group around the meat or fish stalls allowing each passenger to pick and choose their meal. She then ported their wares back to Bebelle and his chef. Half an hour later, a glass or two of wine at a comfortable table within view of both the grill and Bebelle’s entertaining antics, and PRESTO – passengers’ chosen lunches appear before them, along with a bit of friendly conversation from Bebelle and his équipe. Does it get any more authentic than that!?
The problem with writing a blog for a luxury hotel-barge is that the management side of the business is just about has heavy as the barge. You’ll no doubt have observed that writing has been pretty low on the priority list these past few months.
Fortunately, one of our first passengers of the year was kind enough to provide some fantastic blog-fodder. Thanks to David Wright who was on Athos’ “shake-down” week for 2011, I don’t need to witter on about how much he enjoyed his week onboard. Great photos – thanks David!
Jill the dog, at work on the luxury hotel barge Athos
