Our Blog - Bruniquel, France

I think I have mentioned this before, but there are several "lists" of villages and towns across France, some on a list of the "most beautiful villages in France" and others that are on "detours" that are close to major autoroutes. There are 155 (or so) of the most beautiful villages in mainland France (and a few more that are in the overseas departments). We pulled the list and have decided to try to visit all of them. We have already done a few even before we knew about the list. We thought we would take a couple hours and see what we could that are fairly close to Toulouse.

Bruniquel is quite interesting in that a prehistoric cave was discovered here in 1990. Within the cave, the scientists found a "large ring structure" made from broken stalagmites ... almost 400 pieces that were placed in a circle. By using the uranium-thorium dating method, they were able to date these to 176,500 years ago (give or take 2,000 years). In the castle, they had a small video that talked about this. I'm not sure if everyone will be able to get to this, or will want to, but I found this video about it that has English subtitles..

The village is a walled city, with the majority of the "new" walls dating from the 14th century. A majority of the village is pedestrian only, with the "roads" being these pedestrian paths and stairways, like this one that goes through the Porte de Rocas. A couple other pictures just to give an idea of the walls and feel of the village.

It is great when the buildings tell you when they were built :-)

We saw these in a variety of places, where there are still medieval iron elements in windows.

Another door, this one Porte Méjane. Then through another archway, you can see some interesting Romanesque windows and doors.

This nice building, with interesting arches and windows, is just inside Port Méjane, up Rue du Mazel, which is the street of the old slaughterhouse.

The Squirrel's House, which bears an emblem with 2 squirrels on either side of a leaf under the first floor window. It looks like the year 1750 is carved over the door.

Here we are looking down Rue Droite from Porte Neuve (the new gate/door), which is lined with houses from the 14th and 15th centuries. Some come complete with their own gargoyles!

The house where Marcel Lenoir lived between 1915 and 1921. He was a French painter, birth name Jules Oury, In 1913, he moved to Bruniquel and began working on large frescoes. He made 27 frescoes during 1916 here. During this time, he changed his technique and the composition of his mortar, which gave his work a great softness in the various tones. While the majority of this house isn't impressive, it has a nice bas-relief by the sculpteur Calastrini above the door.

There are actually 2 castles here, built up on the edge of the cliff. Legend says that there was yet a 3rd castle here, built in the 6th century by the Merovingian Queen Brunhilda. However, that was destroyed and the current "old castle" was built in the 13th century and was inhabited by the viscounts of Bruniquel. In the 15th century, another castle (the "new castle") is built next door by a cousin of the owner of the "old castle" and here is where it starts getting funny. For 3 centuries, these two branches of the family, who have castles literally next door to each other, continue to quarrel. The owners of the old castle were Catholic, and the new castle owners were Protestant. Finally in the 18th century, the Viscount of the old castle buys the new castle, putting an end to the fighting. In 1840, due to a change in taxes, the new castle is actually boarded up (so that he didn't have to pay tax on it) and only the old castle was lived in. And ... interestingly enough, the old castle will continue to be inhabited permanently, then used as a second home, until 1980 when the last owner died and the town bought the property.

These are the ruins of the Knight's room, dating from the 13th century. There is really nothing inside, but you can see the Romanesque arched windows with the columns and sculpted capitals.

The "old castle" still has a dungeon from the 12th century and the main house from the 13th century. There is also a Renaissance gallery with six arches, overlooking the cliff, that was added in the 19th century. Remember that this is the castle that actually ended up being inhabited up until 1980. Most of the rooms aren't all that interesting, since they were lived-in, and were now used as rooms to exhibit art or other things.

A trivia point: the movie Le vieux fusil was filmed here in 1975. The film is based on the Massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane in 1944, when the town in Nazi-occupied France was destroyed and all 642 of its inhabitants, including women and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SS company. In one of the rooms in the castle, they had a bunch of pictures that showed parts of the movie where you can see the old castle on fire and then after the fire is out. You can see it is definitely the old castle, with the round tour in the first picture and the little tiny turret in the 2nd.

The "New Castle" was built between 1484 and 1510 and underwent alterations during the Baroque period, the openings of the windows 17th and 18th centuries, and the addition of a carved door in 1683 to the entrance to the staircase.

As you can imagine, some of the rooms have gone through some renovations.

And a few rooms that are in an odd state. These are actually 2 different floors plus the attic, but all of the floors except the ground floor have been lost. So in the middle of the wall is a fireplace from the 2nd floor, which looks a bit odd.

Of course, every castle should have its own chapel, which is what this room originally was. However, it was later changed into a kitchen where they added this fireplace.

This is an interesting view of the town and countryside, along with the Knight's Room on the right-hand side, from the window of the top floor.