Vacation with Balana Moa’s Grandparents: Catalunya, Pyrenees, the land of Oc (France)

(Doubleclick any photo to enlarge)

Vilanova i la Geltrú (Garraf, Catalunya)





These lands where we vacationed have been settled a long time and the photos show elements of the built environment from various periods: Iberic, Carthaginian, Roman, Visigothic, Romanesque, Gothic, Imperialist/Colonial and more recent times. The many hilltop castles and fortifications show that this territory has been fought over again and again and the borders have been redrawn many times. Wars of conquest, religious wars, Napoleonic wars, and the Spanish Civil war all left their mark.

Tarragona (Catalunya): Roman Tarraco
















Castle of Olèrdola (Garraf, Catalunya)








Vilafranca del Penedès (Penedès, Catalunya)







Somewhere in the Pyrenees.





La Seu d’Urgell (Catalunya)










Somewhere else in the Pyrenees




The Pays Cathare (photos from Carcassonne, Arques and Peypepertuse) in what is now France (and part of which used to be part of Catalunya) was the site of the Albigensian crusades waged by French Catholics against what they branded the Cathar heresy. Cathars were also Catholics but were critical of the abuses and corruption of the Catholic church and wanted to pursue more independent, devout and modest lives. Less than ten percent of the population of the region are thought to have been Cathars but heresy was used as an excuse for brutal massacres and to grab land for the King of France and his cronies.


Carcassonne (France)
















This war devasted the flourishing Occitan culture, best known for its troubador poets and tradition of courtly love, but also the lively and open discussions of its courts and the central involvment of women in the public arena. The Occitan and Catalan languages are mutually intelligible. But very few people speak Occitan today.

The first action of the crusade (July 21, 1209), was at the town of Béziers. The townspeople refused to turn over the Cathar minority in a deal to save themselves and the crusaders massacred nearly all of the 20,000 inhabitants, including 7,000 who had taken refuge in the cathedral. Some of the crusaders hesitated to commit atrocities. Arnaud-Amaury. abbot of Cîteaux and spiritual leader of the crusade is said to have cried: “Kill them all! God will recognize his own!”


Arques (Pays Cathare, France)






The song of the crusaders went:

“Any castle that resists, any stubborn town shall be taken by force and reduced to a charnel-house. That no living being should be left, even new-born babies. Thus shall be sown healthy fear and no longer shall anyone dare to defy the Cross of God…”

So in this case, the meek did not inherit the earth…do they ever?

Peypepertuse (Pays Cathare, Hautes Corbières, France)





Collioure (Rousillon, France)