Explore the beautiful city of Figeac and the encircling countryside of the fantastic Célé Valley – and you will find a slice of genuine France that is simply brimming with magnificence, tradition and historical past…
A modest market city in rural Lot is not the primary place you may look forward to finding connections between Napoleon Bonaparte, Ancient Egypt and the British Museum. But because of the inquisitive thoughts and dogged willpower of 19th century linguist and puzzle supremo Jean-François Champollion, the medieval city of Figeac in Occitanie supplies a hyperlink to all three.
This buzzing city of round 10,000 inhabitants lies simply north of the Lot river within the valley of the Célé, the encircling space of Grand Figeac designated a Country of Art and History. With its wealth of medieval buildings, Figeac is a gem for heritage followers, but it surely has Champollion to thank for its place on the world stage.
The Rosetta Stone is deciphered
I’m trying down from a high-level backyard within the city middle onto a small pedestrian sq. surrounded by stone buildings. Little greater than a courtyard, the Place des Ecritures is empty aside from an irregular slab of black granite overlaying many of the flooring. A dignified celebration of Figeac’s most well-known son.
In 1798, Napoleon launched a marketing campaign in Egypt and Syria to defend French commerce pursuits and perform scientific analysis. But when the British Navy put paid to the Emperor’s goals of a Middle Eastern empire, the gathering of Egyptian antiquities amassed by his scientists was signed over to the British, together with the Rosetta Stone that now stands within the British Museum in London.
Once a part of a a lot bigger stone pill, this treasured fragment was engraved with three incomplete texts in several scripts, however no person knew what they stated. Academics puzzled for years, but it surely was greater than 20 years earlier than the youngest son of a Figeac bookseller ultimately cracked the code. Born in 1790, Jean-François Champollion had left house at 11 to stay along with his older brother in Grenoble, the place he rapidly developed a ardour for Middle Eastern languages, and at 17, he moved to Paris, decided to decipher the mysterious pill.
‘I’ve bought the deal!‘ (I’ve bought it!) he declared in September 1822 on realizing that the system of Egyptian hierogylphs is in truth an advanced mixture of sounds, phrases and concepts. It had taken 10 years of painstaking examine, however Champollion now understood that the Rosetta Stone was inscribed with a royal decree. The discovery enabled him to establish many temples throughout an expedition to Egypt; go his expertise on to different eager Egyptologists; and have become curator at The Louvre in Paris, however in 1832, Champollion died out of the blue of a stroke, aged simply 41.
Today, the sq. in entrance of his household house is known as in his honor and his birthplace reworked into the fascinating Champollion Museum, that showcases not solely his personal discoveries but in addition the historical past of written communication internationally. From the higher storey, the museum balcony seems out over the rooftops of medieval Figeac; behind it, accessed down a slim alley, lies Place des Ecritures.
Figeac city
The neighboring squares of Place Champollion and Place Carnot have been the middle of native life since medieval instances. From Carnot, head to the Tourist Office in Place Vival to choose up a free annotated map highlighting 30 key heritage buildings across the historic middle. Palais Balène, as an illustration, largest medieval home in Figeac. The Abbey church of St Savior, begun within the eleventhth Century. Renaissance city homes and the 17th Century city corridor.
And to completely expertise that medieval environment, ebook a room on the Mercure Figeac Viguier du Roy, house to the King’s consultant in Figeac for greater than 4 centuries. Gradually expanded to absorb adjoining buildings, this distinctive resort simply off Place Champollion overlooks tranquil courtyard gardens and an outside pool, combining historic stones with fashionable interiors that replicate Champollion’s work on Egyptian hieroglyphs.
As night falls, the café terraces are buzzing after I head out for dinner at Le Safran, a spacious restaurant in a vaulted stone eating room. Specializing in seasonal fish, ‘The Saffron’ takes its title from the spice grown right here within the Quercy area because the Middle Ages and the phrase for the rudder of a fishing boat.
What to see and do close to Figeac
Next day, I head out into the encircling countryside. Figeac is a scenic 2.5-hour practice experience from Toulouse, however vacationers who arrive by automotive can pootle alongside the pleasant Célé Valley that wriggles its manner westward from Figeac by a succession of sleepy villages to affix the Lot near St Cirq-Lapopie.
I cease first at Espagnac-sur-Célé, stress-free over espresso within the courtyard of the traditional priory beneath a turreted bell tower, a landmark for pilgrims on the GR65 path to Compostela in addition to for native hikers and bikers. A couple of meanders additional on, I cease once more to discover the jewel neighborhood of Marcilhac-sur-Célé, a tranquil spot to relax out on a riverside bench or wander among the many ruins of the traditional abbey.
And I’ve been really helpful to take the broad path as much as a viewpoint above the close by village of Sauilac-sur-Célé. In the 19th century, this monitor led to a clutch of properties nestled beneath the sheer limestone cliff, however as we speak the one reminders of the unique village are ruined masonry and a interval picture beside the path, the inhabitants having lengthy since relocated to the flat land beneath.
Pech Merle
West of Sauilac, after a sequence of tight bends, the Célé flows by Cabrerets to affix the Lot on its journey to Cahors. Don’t stick with it with out visiting Pech Merle, a sequence of prehistoric painted caves that make the civilization of Ancient Egypt seem like a newcomer. This is my second go to, however I’m simply as greatly surprised by the number of the paintings, the geology of the caverns, and the story of how Paleolithic work have been found in 1922 by three native youngsters.
Some 800 patterns of assorted sizes and ranges of completion adorn the partitions, together with greater than 70 animals. Mammoths are the most well-liked topics with 28 particular person photographs however there are horses, bison, aurochs and even a lone bear. Human representations too together with a wounded man and mysterious ‘bison-women’. The subterranean circuit stretches for round 600 meters with stairs between numerous ranges, and knowledgeable guides be certain that guests see an important photographs, tracing a few of the least distinct outlines with their laser pens.
The expertise is so vivid, so surprisingly within the second, that I discover I’m continuously anticipating to spherical a nook and discover a Paleolithic painter onerous at work along with his pink and black paints. I’m fascinated by the handprints, massive and small, made by blowing powdered pigment at a palm positioned on the wall, and by the Black Frieze depicting 25 animal figures on a 7-meter panel. But my creativeness goes into overdrive as I look down on a toddler’s footprint, preserved for millennia in fossilized mud. Who was this younger individual and did she or he mischievously make these handprints while mum or dad was busy portray a mammoth?
It’s all humbling stuff, assured to remain within the thoughts lengthy after you might be again out in 21st century daylight. And as I take a look at the colourful frieze of noticed horses, a mom 29,000 years younger, I can not assist questioning what Monsieur Champollion would have product of all of it. Heads held excessive, the noticed equines trot proudly throughout the rock face into eternity, a snapshot of the previous that even he would have struggled to decipher.
Useful data: visit-occitanie.com/en; tourism-figeac.com
By Gillian Thornton, one of many UK’s main journey writers and an everyday author for The Good Life France Magazine and web site.
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