Abrivado, La Course Camarguaise, Bandido Part 2Sunday Oct 6th I'm trying to give you some idea what this festival looks like but there are so many moving parts it's hard to break the days into blog size pieces. In the last blog post we went from the meadow where the bulls are rounded up, directly to the bullfighting. We missed the abrivado where the bulls are run through town to the arena. We will do that today and as this is the official opening day of the festival it will be extra special. More on that later. The bulls are run out of the meadow, down a lane, into the town, and out the south gate, as in the pictures below.
After delivering the bulls to the arena the gardiens would all line up against the town walls. It had a ritualistic look to it.
Motorbikes like the one above and below, with the motor mounted on the front tire, were very popular. Cute, but they smoke something awful.
We were immersed in a combination county fair/rodeo that had been celebrated for many hundreds of years. These people did all of this just for themselves. It certainly wasn't to make money off the tourists. For one thing, we didn't see any. For another, the entire festival was free, including parking the car. When the parade was over we realized we had lingered around too long to get a seat in the arena for the first bullfight so we took this chance to look around town.
Above is our friend, St. Louis, King of France, founder of this town. This was our chance too, to walk the top of the town wall.
Below is the great salt recovery works. Aigues-Mortes has been in the sea salt business since the early Middle Ages. The pink water is caused by algae.
We caught the afternoon bullfight, reported on in the previous blog post, and then it was time for the bandido. That is, the running of the bulls back through town to the meadow. I consider this a great photo op and one has to get there early to stake out a good spot. In fact, this being opening weekend, there were throngs of people both inside the town and outside the south gate, all of them inside the steel barriers. I think it was worth the effort.
It is impossible to overstate how fun this is. But wait! There's more! Our next post will top it all! Abrivado, La Course Camarguaise, BandidoSaturday, Oct 5th We were now ready for the bullfighting. This festival is one of many of its kind all over southern France and it is one of the bigger ones. This may be because it is in the heart of the Camargue which is where the manades (ranches) are all located. Each day of the festival is sponsored by a different family's manade. So the day starts in a meadow at the edge of town. The bulls have been brought in by the sponsoring manade. But before doing anything with them we have to have a party! Everyone was eating, drinking wine, cooking, we would call it a tailgate party. There was a very lively band playing traditional tunes.
Presently, the gardians began to cut from the herd the bulls that would be taken through the town to the arena. These photos are documentary just to show how this show proceeds.
Nine bulls are gathered in the small canal behind the meadow.
This begins the part of the festival called the abrivado, where the gardians run the bulls through the town. At this point we rushed out to try to catch them emerging from the south gate of the town. We just missed them. The last of them were running into the arena as we arrived. But this is the reason we will be here for three days. They will run two more abrivados before we leave and we will be there. But we were not late for the course camarguaise. This, we have learned at this point, is the name of the French style bullfight, where the bull is the star of the show and is not killed. Rather, the object of the encounter is for the rasetuer to grab a ribbon from between the bull's horns. It is still a very exotic spectacle. As we reported in the blog last year, at times, most of the time actually, we could hardly believe what we were seeing. We've also learned that of all the course camarguaise bullfights across southern France, this is one of the more informal, or could we say chaotic? In most towns the rasetuers are vetted for skill level before they are allowed in the arena. In Aigues-Mortes it is a free for all. Anyone who wants to get killed by a wild bull will be given every opportunity. The informality is evident in the pregame warmup.
The guy in the sequence below almost outruns the bull. But not quite. Note that the bull breaks off the top rail of the fence.
The young man below was trying very hard to be a proper rasetuer. He's trying to grab the ribbon between the bulls horns and showing pretty good form. But he is clearly not ready for the major leagues. And I'll bet he's glad they sheath those horns.
The haystacks in the center of the arena are supposed to provide, in theory, a home base of safety. But then it's only a theory.
Here's another matador.
On that note we will leave the bullfighting. More festival in the next post.
Back to the Camargue, AgainFriday October 4th We spent the morning making one more spin through Olargues.
Time now to head back to the Camargue. We would spend the rest of the trip in the medieval walled town of Aigues-Mortes, built by King Louis IX in the 1200's. If you followed the blog last year, this is where we saw the French style bullfighting. It was so much fun we had to come back. This time we allocated three full days for the festival.
We were welcomed by the great rows of sycamores of southern France.
Last year we were caught totally off guard on what we were getting ourselves into with these black bulls and white horses so this time we tried to get up to speed on what was going on. This festival goes on for eleven days and there are events in different parts of town. We will be ready tomorrow morning. Meantime we enjoyed the sunset.
CarcassonneThursday Oct 3rd Our destination this day would be the great walled town of Carcassonne. It has been quite well preserved and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It too, is on the Canal du Midi. But on the way we wanted to check out a couple of other spots. First was a very cool windmill, which was a purely serendipitous find when JM spotted a sign on the side of the road. The cloudy weather from the previous day was still hanging around.
We got into Carcassonne and were right by the the cathedral so we made a visit. Impressive.
Finally pulled up to the castle. The gentleman below was patiently waiting for a challenger.
We made it back to Olargues just before dark.
BeziersWednesday October 2nd We started our morning looking around Olargue a little more. It was all very quaint and clean but not too dolled up for the tourists. Our hostess was an artist and her gallery was on the first floor of our accommodations.
And we did find a few spots to take a picture.
Guess which profession the signage below is advertising. Answer at the end of the post.
Below is the WWI memorial to the fallen. Every village has one.
Then on to Beziers. This is a small medieval city on the Orb river. The Orb was used for navigation until the 17th century when the Canal du Midi was dug along the route of the river up to Toulouse, where another canal connected to the Atlantic coast. This was a huge shot in the arm to their economy, similar to our digging the Erie Canal, as trade no longer had to go around Spain, which was not always on friendly terms with France.
Did I mention that I like reflections?
Like most cities in France, large and small, they have a beautiful cathedral.
Jeanne Marie enjoyed a serendipitous one hour organ concert while I climbed the steps to the roof. The view from the roof.
Below St. Jeanne d'Arc meets St. Jeanne.
The Canal du Midi runs through Breziers and it is an interesting thing to see.
Answer to the question at the top of the post: The midwife.
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