Route de Compostela

La Romieu is a village on the Route de Compostela with a unique tale !

....In 1342 and the 2 years that followed, the winters were harsh and the spring and summer so wet that it was impossible to sow their crops. There followed a great famine and inspite of the distribution of the collegiate reserves by the lord Arnaud d'Aux, the inhabitants soon had nothing to eat. They thought of the numerous cats in the village and set about catching them. Angeline's parents, knowing how much she loved hers, allowed her to keep a male and female cat on the condition she hid them well, as the neighbours would gladly kill them. Angeline, therefore, shut her two cats in the attic by day and at nignt she let them out to hunt. But the famine grew worse and many villagers died. Angeline and her parents barely subsisted by collecting roots in the woods and sometimes they found mushrooms but it was hardly sufficient. Weakened by hunger, they managed somehow to survive this terrible period and more clement times finally arrived, allowing them to harvest what they needed to live.

View larger photo.

Région: Midi-Pyrénées
Département: Gers
Commune: La Romieu
Photographer: Dale Calder
Route de Compostela