House of the Stone Carpets, Ravenna

The core set of elaborately glittering golden mosaics in Ravenna are indubitably the most famous, but they are not the only show in town. We also visited the so-called "Stone Carpets", a set of Roman/Byzantine mosaics with a backstory almost as fabulous as the mosaics themselves.

You reach the House of the Stone Carpets via the next-door church of Saint Eufemia. There, you pass underground, three metres below current ground level, to an excavated Byzantine palace which was only discovered in 1993 during the (attempted) construction of an underground garage. Covering around 1200 sq metres, the 14 rooms and three courtyards of the small palace are covered with intricately patterned "carpets" in stone, as well as a couple of stand-out figurative mosaics. The mosaics were restored and the returned to their original location, albeit now in a modern excavation space that allows visitors to walk "through" the house on raised platforms. It only opened to the public in 2002.

It was peaceful and not crowded when we visited (luckily, otherwise it might be unpleasant to have to queue along the platforms), probably because it is less known, less flashy than the main sites, and not included in the combination ticket to the religious buildings. It's a nice chance to see a secular building with a more intimate and low-key mosaic decoration.

The dance of the seasons

Lighting didn't quite work out for a photo with the dancing mosaic

Christ as the Good Shepherd. This is apparently quite different from the standard representation, although none of the sites I've consulted say how exactly. I would guess his very youthful, countrified appearance

Lyon me*

The last stop on our trip - I swear blogging it has taken longer than it did in real time - was an overnight stopover in Lyon. Traffic and the Millau detour meant we didn't arrive until early evening, but we still had time for a quick walk around the Old Town's narrow, cobbled and touristy streets before dinner.

Lyon is at the confluence of two rivers. This one is the Sâone

In front of a wild horse fountain by the town hall

At certain intervals, steam came through the horses' nostrils, which was pretty cool

Lyon's been on the list for a long time. Everyone seems to like it. One evening and a morning is really not enough, but we had our priorities straight - food. Lyon is often known as the culinary capital of France, and when we're talking France, that's saying a lot. It is particularly known for its bouchons, bistros serving traditional Lyonnaise cuisine, often heavy on the offal. On our first evening, however, we opted to dine chez Paul Bocuse, the legendary Lyonnais chef who has held three Michelin stars for over 50 years. Well, sort of. Nice as that would have been, a three-star restaurant wasn't quite in the plan (or budget). Instead, we dined at one of his brasseries, Le Nord. Food and service weren't quite three star of course, but still a pleasant meal, and we can now say we've dined at a Paul Bocuse establishment at least!

Jules in front of a couple of bouchons in the Old Town

In the morning, it was raining (as I said, the rain followed us around for the whole trip), but that didn't stop us taking Lyon's nifty little funicular up the hillside, where we accidentally but fortuitously got off at the Roman arena. It was still rigged up with a stage and lighting for the annual summer theatre that takes place there - it must be a cool experience, sitting in an ancient theatre with a great view of the city. It was pretty miserable and deserted when we were there though!

My allergy to ironing letting me down again here

View of the theatre and the city

From there, it was a short walk to the Notre Dame Basilica, where we had been intending to go all along. This 19th-century church was as lavishly decorated as the one in Albi, just much newer, brighter and more sparkly. And way more crowded. It was pretty much as noisy and bustling as a nightclub in there, which is never my favourite experience. Pretty though.

The rain had stopped by the time we came out of the basilica, and we were treated to some lovely views over the city.

The domed building in the middle is the Opera House, to the right of the town hall

Looking across the Sâone to the peninsula between the two rivers

I don't know where this was, but I liked the blurred look (I cropped a finger out of the top right-hand corner)

We couldn't leave Lyon without a stop at one of those bouchons I mentioned above. We picked a place that co-ordinated with my outfit and settled in for a three-course lunch. Jules had tripe, which I was even brave enough to try (okay, although it looks pretty gross) and I had the Lyon speciality of pike quenelle. I'd always seen quenelle described as a sort of dumpling, and so I had imagined something quite small. Turned out it was quite big and dense, and covered in a yummy crab (or maybe lobster?) sauce. Delish in any case.

Cheers!

My generously-sized quenelle

As well as food, Lyon is famous for its festival of lights, which always takes place around my birthday. So who knows, maybe one year I'll be back to see all the things we no doubt missed on our very brief stop in Lyon!

*I even like puns that make no sense. Lean on me? No?

Cathar country continued: Peyrepertuse and Quéribus (aka amazing views)

I didn't want to overload with too much information earlier on, but maybe I should have said something earlier about what the whole Cathar heresy was about. It was basically a dualist outlook, which divided the universe into good and evil, each ruled over by a Good God and an Evil God respectively. The Cathars identified all of the material world as falling under the sway of the Evil God, and hence rejected any materialism such as sex or the accumulation of wealth, at least for the priestly Perfect class. Since they rejected the physical body as a creation of the Evil God, they treated men and women equally, as genderless spirits trapped in physical bodies. The Catholic Church, with its vast material wealth, perhaps understandably did not take too kindly to these doctrines and launched the Albigensian Crusade against them in 1208. The rest is long and complicated history, but finished up with the Cathars being more or less wiped out and the formally fairly independent rulers of southern France, most of whom were not actually Cathars themselves but were tolerant towards them, being either deposed or brought firmly under the control of the French crown.

The stand-out visit of our trip was to the château of Peyrepertuse, which lies at an altitude of about 800 metres in the foothills of the Pyrénées. Although in ruins, it covers an area as large as Carcassonne, and is today divided into two distinct areas, which I think are the main castle and the keep, which offers amazing views of the main fortress and the valley below. The walk up is not as steep as at Montségur, but you do face a second climb up the Saint Louis staircase (named after the French king who further reinforced the site after capturing it in the crusades) to get to the keep.

Part of the climb up the St. Louis staircase

Looking down from the staircase to the main castle

There were spectacular views from the edge of the Keep area

After we climbed back down from Peyrepertuse, we headed to nearby Quéribus. Quéribus was definitely the smallest and least impressive-looking of the castles we visited on this trip, but it also gave amazing views of its surroundings, particularly as it is perched on its rock in a very compact way, allowing you to see in all directions. Peyrepertuse is visible from Quéribus and vice-versa, although I'm not sure you can pick out either in the photos I've posted. Its exposed position also meant it was extremely windy up there - not really the place to be wearing a light summer dress. I had to hobble up the stairs trying to hold it down most of the time we were up there.

Cathar country continues: The siege of Montségur

When I told one of my colleagues we were planning a trip to the Cathar châteaux, his response was, "you know it's all ruins, right?" I did know, but was also pretty much caught up in the romanticism surrounding the sites. They've definitely done a good job of playing up the Cathar connections, even if in many cases they were apparently substantially renovated in the centuries after the crusades, by the conquerors. In the case of Montségur, an archaeological inspection in the 20th century concluded that "no trace" remained of the castle that was besieged during the crusades. The ruins that are there are still old, but 17th-century old, a far cry from the 13th century of the crusades. This is not prominently referred to on the tourist websites... However, there do still remain the ruins of some of the Cathar houses clinging to the current fortress wall.

Despite this, Montségur is perhaps the most evocative of the Cathar sites, at least by reputation. Seen as the last (major) stand of the Cathars, it was beseiged for nine months by the crusaders, who were unable to cut off supplies to the castle due to its naturally-defended location (walking up there, the mind boggles that they were able to haul supplies and building materials and so on up there, but apparently they did). Finally, though, they found a spot where they could build a catapult in range of the castle's defensive barbican and subsequently the castle itself. Finally, the besieged fortress surrendered, and while those who agreed to give up the Cathar faith were allowed to leave, around 215 Cathars gave themselves up and were burned alive at the foot of the mountain.

Myths and legends swirl around the castle today, such as that some of the Cathars escaped with a secret treasure, rumoured to be the Holy Grail. It is even often said that the Nazis were obsessed with finding the Grail, and someone hunted for it at Montségur on Himmler's orders, although it appears that this is as historically dubious as the original Grail story.

So while the castle as it is today might not be as old or mysterious as legend would have it, it still boasts impressive views of the surrounding countryside from its 1,200 metre perch. From the carpark, it's a vertical ascent of 250 metres to get to the castle, but it's all worth it when you get up there.

Before starting our climb

On the way back down

Inside the ruins

I love the layered look of each chain of hills stretching to the horizon

We didn't have the place quite all to ourselves, but it was pretty quiet up there

Photo taken by a friendly Australian

What do the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Normans, Venetians, Ottomans and Napoleon have in common?

On Saturday, we headed slightly south of Ksamil to the incredible ancient site of Butrint. Butrint is a microcosm of regional history - you can see buildings and ruins from Ancient Greece and Rome, the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and even the Republic of Venice. 

Legend has it that the city was founded by refugees from the sack of Troy, including Priam's son. According to this mythology, it gets its name (Buthrotum) from a wounded ox which struggled ashore and died. The Trojans took this as a good omen (why? Reasons...) and founded their new city there. 

In reality, the site has been settled since at least the 10th-8th centuries BC, and was occupied by the Chaonian Greeks. It grew in importance due to its strategic position near Corfu and as a shrine to Asclepius. It later came under Roman control, with Julius Caesar officially declaring it a Roman colony in 44 BC. 

Greek theatre, later Romanized 

The city went into a decline, partly caused by a large earthquake, in late antiquity, before becoming the seat of a Byzantine bishopric in the 6th century AD. At this time, the Byzantines built a large basilica and baptistery on the site. 

In the Basilica

The circular Baptistery has the most amazing mosaic floor

And now you have seen the mosaics exactly as well as we have, as unfortunately they are almost always kept covered by a layer of sand for preservation reasons. Here's what you actually see:

There are more beautiful, well-preserved mosaics elsewhere on the site, but they are also covered up. Luckily we knew this before visiting, so we weren't too disappointed. It's a shame they don't at least have something like high-definition photos of all the mosaics though, as from the little we saw, they are amazing, full of darling animals and birds. Apparently they are uncovered every few years, but it was difficult finding information about the current opening hours of the place, let alone a website that might reliably tell you when they will next be on display. 

The natural setting of Butrint is an attraction in itself 

The Lion Gate in the city walls

The city declined again, fending off attacks from varied offenders including the Ostrogoths and even the Normans and Angevins, until it was purchased from the Angevins by the Venetians in 1386 (I didn't know some of these people got about so much!) The Venetians built a fortress on top of the hill to defend against the Ottoman Empire. 

Venetian castle

View from the Venetian fortress

The area went back and forth under Venetian and Ottoman control over a couple of centuries, even briefly being given to Napoleon under a treaty with Venice, before finally being conquered by the locally famous Albanian-Ottoman governor Ali Pasha in 1799, remaining in the Ottoman Empire until Albanian independence in 1912, by which time the city was abandoned. 

So there you go! Very complex history, but wandering through the site and seeing all the different layers of it really made it come alive. It was baking hot and quite tiring, but really engaging over the two or so hours we were there. We thought there would be guides hanging about like at Pompeii which we could hire on the spot, but there didn't seem to be anyone. In the end though, the pamphlet and explanatory panels did a good job and there is a small museum in the Venetian fortress, so I don't think we missed too much without a guide. Definitely one of the highlights of our trip so far.