Caunes to Prades

Monday, August 3, 2015

     I could have gone to Prades in an hour and 45 minutes, but I wanted to avoid the toll road and take the route through the Pyrenees, as the sky today has been clear and warm.  It took me three and a half hours to reach Saint Thomas les Bains, a thermal spring an hour from Prades, but it was a chance to see the part of the Pyrenees that runs through l'Aude and l'Ariege (Pyrenees Audois et Ariegeois).  

     Much of the trip involved driving hairpin turns through the forest.  I went to Saint Thomas via Axat, picking up a young hitchhiker from Reunion, the French island in the South Pacific.  He works as a juggler and plays the guitar to make a living, and to helps bring in the wine harvest when the it rolls around. The rest of the ride I listened to France Culture, which featured a discussion of influence of Fernand Braudel in general and his interest in the role of Seville at its apogee in particular, followed by a lecture on New French Philosophy, which covered all the arguments Foucault, Baudrillard, Derrida and their successors had with each other.

     You drive up to the baths at Saint Thomas and think you've reached a mining settlement in the Rockies: there's a square little house with a sign in large letters that says "SAINT THOMAS" at the end of a road on an incline.  Once inside, it's basic: 6 Euros and a towel, but the baths are outside, and you have to take a hot shower outside before you can soak in the three pools, which are small.  However, the shower is deliciously hot, sulfurous and alkaline.  The thermal spring's waters pour down on you, massaging every muscle.  I found the location a perfect spot to stretch out my muscles, tired from the long drive.

     Saint Thomas was not as close to Prades as I had thought, but the drive promised a wonderful end. The Pyrenees opened out before me as they had not in l'Aude or l'Ariege: this is country you take deep breaths in.  However, Prades was disappointing, a poor village with something I had not yet seen in my gallivants around the Midi: burnt-out cases, down and outs, clustering around the post office, of all places.  There were no stores proudly selling local goods, just a SPAR, with products from chains, what the French call la grand distribution.

     Fearing my experience in Tarbes was going to repeat itself, I made my way gingerly to my airbnb address.  I needn't have worried, Dominique and Sofi, my hosts, live in an enomous house in the heights of Prades, overlooking the immensity of Mont Canigou.   

       My room has a lovely view of the mountains, and the rooms are clear and airy --and quiet.  Dominique is a chef, and a teacher of would-be chefs, and Sofi is a masseuse.  They raised their children in Nantes, and now that their son has graduated as an engineer, working in Pau, and their daughter is completing her university studies at Toulouse, Dominique and Sofi decided to move to Prades and give running a bed and breakfast a go.

     Judging from the beautifully presented salad of vegetables from their garden and the three goat cheeses I was served, I think they are likely to succeed.

     And I am likely to have a restful week, listening to chamber music at the nearby abbey of Saint Michel de Cuxa from tonight through Thursday, reading up on Rome before my trip next week, and generally enjoying the change of scene.  Now that I know something of the history of Mont Canigou, it seems easier to understand why cellist Pablo Casals moved to Prades:

     Mont Canigou has steeply rising flanks, and it is not far from the Mediterranean, a dramatic vista  that led people in the 18th century to believe it was the highest mountain in the Pyrenees.  --That distinction belongs to Mont Aneto, near the Bay of Biscay in the Western Pyrenees (11, 168').  However, Canigou, at 9, 137 feet, is no small potatoes, either.    And the mountain is an icon of Catalan nationalism: the Catalan flag flies at its summit, and on the night of June 22, the eve of Saint John's Day, there is a relay of torches lit from a bonfire at the summit carried by runners throughout Spanish and French Catalonia.   By choosing to live in Prades, Casals identified himself firmly with Catalan nationalism (suppressed by the Franco government) and against Franco.  At the United Nations in 1971, to receive the "Peace and Freedom Medal", he delivered these brief remarks, which confirm his pride in his Catalan origins:

     But let me say one thing. I am a Catalan. Today a province of Spain. But what has been Catalonia? Catalonia has been the greatest nation in the world. I will tell you why. Catalonia has had the first parliament, much before England. Catalonia had the beginning of the United Nations. All the authorities of Catalonia in the 11th century met in a city of France, at that time Catalonia, to speak about peace. 11th century! Peace in the world and against, against, against war, the inhumanity of war. This was Catalonia. I am so so happy, so moved to be here, with you.

     His memory lives on at the festival.