Tracking the DaVinci Code

Boy, that title really makes it sound exciting!!  OK, at least made you look . . .

Today I went to Rennes-le-Chateau, a little village on top of a hillside overlooking the foothills of the Pyrenees to the south.  The name actually means "Reindeer of the Castle" so I need to ask somebody about that--are there really reindeer in southern France?!  Bet not!

 The signs which tell you that you're entering a town are rimmed in red like this.

 You can just see the peaks of some of the Pyrenees over those hills yonder!

 The Tower of Mary Magdalene, built by a priest who had avowed poverty. ("La Tour Magdala")

 The baptismal font in the church is held up on the shoulders of the Devil!!

 Notre Dame in Paris isn't the only place with gargoyles!

Every churchyard should have a skull and crossbones, don't ya think?

Rennes-le-Chateau, of course, is where the priest Berengar Sauniere supposedly "found" a treasure of something under the altar of his church sanctuary and went from being a pauper to being VERY well off.  He revitalized the church in the small town, and left some very bizarre decorating schemes behind, as well.  His maid and friend (?!) of 30 years, to whom he left his fortune, had promised to tell the source of his wealth on her deathbed--then she went and had a stroke, and couldn't tell anybody anything.  The DaVinci Code, of course, built up the idea that what he found were the documents "proving" that Mary Magdalene, who was pregnant by Jesus, came to that area and gave birth to the Holy Lineage, the Merovingian royal line.  (Pretty far-fetched, as my grandmother would say!)  But the church and the village have spun it into a tourist trade of note.  So I took photos in the church, in the village, and of Sauniere's "Magdala Tour".  But the nicest thing was stopping on the way up--one ascends the hill to the village on the north side of the hill, and the actual village with the church is on the south side of the hill; I stopped on the north side at the summit, and just gazed for a full 15 minutes in the sunshine (84 degrees with a nice breeze) at the silent world below me.  From up there, you couldn't hear cars, trains, planes, or mp3 players--it was blissful.  The Pyrenees even made an appearance!  And it's all less than an hour from Carcassonne.  I am loving the southern hills of SW France.  For the record, Tom Hanks was NOT there.