Les Gargouilles Francais
Les Gargouilles Francais
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Tucked away not far down a street off the main square, the street next to the taste-buds-heaven-on-earth charcuterie place, is an unprepossessing building. Fairly non-descript till you look up and notice a tower covered in spikey things, some of them gargoyles, others these strange pokey-out bits they seem so fond of in France and Spain - why IS that? Has nice carvings round the door too and when I was there a couple of young things snogging round the back (but don't bother looking for them, they've probably found a comfier place by now (grin).
Here are the views of the church and environs
The gargoyles
Photos Aug 2001 (all 200mm lens)
Finally, ok these are obviously not gargoyles but the carvings are pretty good. Judging by the clarity of these and the erosion of the stonework around they must be relatively recent compared with the church itself, maybe replaced.
Photos Aug 2001 (all 28-200mm lens)
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Unfortunately the light was fading fast so not much visible, but here it is anyway, not very exciting I'm afraid.
Photos Aug 2001 (all 28-200mm lens)
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Carcassonne was one of biggest Cathar strongholds before the Pope hired Simon De Montfort to wipe them out in the 1200s. Fortunately most of the city remains and has been carefully restored, it's impressive. There are loads of gargoyles all round the cathedral building, but most are currently (Jan2001) mixed up with scaffolding and covered up in wire netting during restoration, so the available subjects are limited and the pictures are a bit poor. How many of these are restored and when they first appeared on the buildings anyway (Cathar or later?) is anyone's guess. I have to say the gargoyles are a bit samey and obviously there just for show - no downspouts and not particularly scary, so maybe they're late additions, but they are big, about 3 or 4 feet long. If you go there, take binoculars as they're a long way up.
Photos Jan 2001 (70mm lens)
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I confess I have temporarily mislaid the information about this one and don't have any reference books with me right now, but I want to publish it asap anyway. So you'll have to make do with knowing it's an unknown building somewhere in France, I think the Loire rather than the south. Many thanks to my mum's friend Frank for going to the trouble of finding, photographing and sending these after he'd heard about my, er interest, er possibly obsession.
These are weird, more like dinosaurs than anything else, with a swan at top left of the big picture. I've enlarged the dinosaurs just a little bit.
And this is a lovely winged angelic or cherubic water carrier in a corner of the building, presumably a plumbing one at that, I like the shadows.
Photos thanks to Mum's friend Frank, mid 2002
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Huge, massive square block of a church with 2 gargoyles on the front. Very old with big crack down left hand side, made from shallow bricks (more like Roman bricks than standard British sized). Huge inside with the sense of a lot of space, and noticeably square looking compared with classic English churches. Decorated with painted coloured walls (originally bright but now a bit dulled), also with huge and sombre hung paintings. In a bit of state of disrepair but with the appearance of still being frequently used.
Photos Aug2002, Nikon FE2 28-200mm & 600mm, 400ASA.
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