Sant marti de canigo2/25/2023 ![]() ![]() The Call of the Wild: Wildlife in the Pyrenees, Canigou Mountain Rangeĭriving to the nearby village of Casteil, starting point of our adventure, only took less than 15 minutes. We thought we were setting off for a historical hike with a monastery highlight but much to our delight, found a musical genius en route. The rest of the day was packed with other activities so we got cracking pretty quickly. Waking up at the ungodly hour of five, bleary eyed, my brother, my nephew, and my youngest daughter’s best friend all stepped out one by one of their hotel rooms in the sleepy spa town of Vernet-les-Bains. Spending a few days in the Pyrenees with my brother’s family and my parents, we carved out a few hours before breakfast to set out in the dark and attempt to find the same view in real life in August 2021. Over a century later, what did it look like? Would we recognize it? Back then, the abbey was still in ruins, a romantic if forlorn sight at the back of a steep mountain valley. Pouring over a topographic map, we narrowed down the possible spots from which the painting was composed and how to reach them on foot, as our ancestor would have done in 1905. Saint-Martin-du-Canigou as it looked in 1905. It shows the weathered walls exposed on a sunny day, with only the crenelated tower structurally intact, a few green patches of vegetation, painted from a higher elevation. One of his paintings represents a view of the ruins of the abbey of St Martin du Canigou, from a promontory above the monastery in the Pyrenees. In August 2021, my father and I set out to follow the footsteps of our ancestor George Daniel de Monfreid (1856 – 1929), who painted landscapes of his beloved Pyrenees at the turn of the 20th century. Getting up before the crack of dawn for a pre-breakfast hike does not always end with a jazzy surprise in bleak weather, but last summer we lucked out. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |