Le Puy en Velay

Today I will hike up a volcanic spit 270 ft. high on 268 uneven, small rough-hewn stairs to get to the top of a chapel build in the year 969. (My knees started to hurt just typing this. hahaha) Answer me this – how did “THEY” get the stones and building materials and yes, even a stained glass, up a needle-nosed mountain spike in 969? No calculators, no CAD designs. People were smart.

Aiguilhe, le Rocher et la Chapelle St-Michel. Quite a hike but worth the climb!

The tallest statue is the Virgin Mary and Christ-child, made out of melted bronze from the Russian cannons captured at the Battle of Sebastopol in the Crimean War, a gift from Napoleon III to the people of Le Puy en Velay.

Le rocher et la Chapelle St. Michel is a fascinating chapel that still has the frescoes painted on the walls of St. Michael throwing the devil into the pit. It is one of the beginning points of the pilgrimage journey of 1,000 miles to St. Jacques de Compostelle in Spain, the alleged burial site of the Biblical apostle St. James. People still walk the 1,000 miles today and come to Le Puy en Velay to have their walking sticks blessed before starting.

and the view from the top, on the way down…gotta love it!

And let’s talk about LACE! If you watch the first two minutes of this video of three sisters, aged 75-85, you will understand the complexity of this ‘lost art.’ (Common’, watch it – click here.) Their fingers fly like a shell game! There is actually still a vocational school of lace-making in Le Puy en Velay so that the art of bobbin lace-making is not lost – and a really interesting history about the whole evolution of French lace-making on this link – click here. It’s fascinating! Such a piece of culture and history … today I’m in search of ‘something lace’ to bring home!

And LEMON VERBENA! Who knew flowers could taste so good? Le Puy en Velay is well known internationally for producing and distilling Verveine du Velay, a liquor derived from lemon verbena grown in part by the Carmelite nuns nearby. The liquor also includes juniper berries and 30 other herbs and spices in a closely guarded secret recipe. The plants give it a distinctive beautiful green color and it is combined with Auvergne honey, sugar and cognac.

There was a small museum and teeny tiny samples were included. 🙂

The distillery in 1929 — and today, still operating across from our hotel, in 2019!

Green (the best known, with 55% alcohol),
Gold (a softer blend, 40%),
Extra (with added cognac and matured for two years, 40%)
La Petite (weaker, 18%).

Side Note – In my experiences in western Europe, history appears to be documented for what it is – not rewritten (i.e., hidden or laundered) because it was sordid or racist or inhumane. The stories – and monuments, statues, and art – tell the good, the bad, and the ugly. Statues of warriors, insurrectionists, and kings still stand as a testament of what really happened, regardless of the political intolerance and revisionist edits of today’s historians. We as a human race need to know what happened – where – and why, so that we can UNDERSTAND and OVERCOME. Rewriting our own US history distorts our understanding and prevents us from comprehending the circumstances in which events took place and just how far we’ve come or why our actions may have been necessary in context.

Ay-yi-yi, I’m getting off my soapbox now and heading outside! Ha ha, can’t help myself. 🙂