I don’t know about you, but I hate it when the name of a place or person crops up and you are absolutely expected to know who or where or what it is! You know what I mean? Not far from Le Mas d’Azil is a small village called Carla-Bayle. (What!? You mean you’ve never heard of the name before)??? Well, to the uneducated (and that includes me), the village is named after Pierre Bayle, a French philosopher and author born in 1647. He was a Protestant and Carla-Bayle was a bastion for the Protestant faithful. OK, so you are now ‘in the know’.

An old Huguenot citadel, this village is located on a 400 m rocky peak, and overlooks the valleys of the Lèze and Arize rivers, and offers a magnificent view of the nearby Pyrénées. Unfortunately my view was somewhat lacking but the countryside is beautiful.

Today it has become synonymous with painters, sculptors, ceramists and other ‘arty’ types, and the village itself is really colourful with the brightly painted buildings and shutters.

Place de l’Europe

Part of the old fortified walls

As with so many places at the moment, they are closed or have very limited opening due to Covid-19, so I didn’t even get to see any of the art. I’m sure a lot of it would have been well out of my pocket money budget, but you never know, there may have been that one piece that captivated me!

A Bientot!