Drive to St. Guilhem-le-Desert August 3

The rocky river beach. The water was wonderul. I'll be coming back here with waterproof shoes.
Stalagmites in Clamouse Cave


Lightshow in the cave

Organ in the Abbey

One alley without tourists in St. Guilhem-le-Desert.

- Public Access Defibrillation in St. Guilhem-le-Desert

It’s been a pretty quiet week. This is the gap I have between visitors. It has actually been very relaxing and enjoyable. I’ve been catching up on reading, taking plenty of walks, going to the beach, shopping in Pezenas, etc. Just generally hanging out.

Yesterday I decided to do some exploring. I drove to St. Guilhem-le-Desert which isn’t really very far from here – just to the northwest of Montpellier. It isn’t really a desert – lots of green canyons, outcroppings of rocks, and a lot of vegetation. Apparently it got the name desert because Guilhem Court-Nez, who was a very powerful count and friend of Charlemagne, came here to be alone after fighting in many wars and having his wife die. The place was very deserted and peaceful and he founded an abbey there.

First I stopped at Clamouse Cave. It is a gigantic and incredibly beautiful cave (no sign of cave paintings here). You enter the vast system of caves at the lowest level and ascend the wet paths and many stairs though a series of “rooms”. The higher up you go the more beautiful and intricate the formations become. Since they had a film with English (and German) subtitles at the beginning, and the guide occasionally added something in English during the tour I learned quite a bit about limestone caves. The water seeps in from the top through the very porous limestone. During heavy rains some of the chambers are completely flooded. During this seeping, the water dissolves the various materials within the limestone, and as they drip these materials form a stalactite from the top and where they drip to they form a stalagmite. Sometimes the two come together forming an intact column.

In one large “room” there was a pretty incredible lightshow and chorale music. It was very beautiful but managed to frighten many of the little children who cried hysterically. One interesting thing – they allowed dogs on the tours. Ours had a very well behaved golden retriever and I saw a cocker spaniel on the next one.

After the cave I continued on to St. Guilhem-le-Désert. The town was very crowded with tourists but still very, very charming. In fact, I think it is probably the best I’ve seen so far. The Abbey is very interesting. It is obviously very old (like from the 800s). At one time it was apparently full of much statuary of which there are only a few remnants still there in its museum. Apparently when the Catholic Church was in disfavor during the rise of Protestantism and the Cathars most of the sculptures were disfigured (now understand that those people had a right to be angry as the Catholics had slaughtered thousands of Cathars in southwest France). After this period a lot of the statuary was removed from the Abbey and used to decorate local houses. A lot of it ended in the hands of an antiquities dealer who sold a lot of it to the American who founded The Cloisters Museum in New York City (and it is still there today).

In more modern times a huge organ was installed in the Abbey and they hold concerts here fairly often. I’m going to check the schedule and see if we can attend one.

After I left the Abbey I drove just a short way down the hill where there is a spot where the Herault River is dammed and there is a lovely place to swim. The water was heavenly but I am definitely going to buy some footwear that you can wear into the water. It hasn’t been such a problem at the Cap D’Agde beaches where the beach is fine sand. This river beach was made up of rocks which continued into the water. Many of the Mediterranean beaches are also very rocky. I’m sure I looked pretty ridiculous coming out of the water on all fours but those rocks are really painful!!