{"id":2061,"date":"2013-10-20T18:03:23","date_gmt":"2013-10-20T18:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/martinblack.com\/?p=2061"},"modified":"2014-11-22T15:25:25","modified_gmt":"2014-11-22T15:25:25","slug":"four-days-on-the-sentier-cathare-cathar-way-day-4-duilhac-sous-peyrepertuse-maury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/2013\/10\/four-days-on-the-sentier-cathare-cathar-way-day-4-duilhac-sous-peyrepertuse-maury\/","title":{"rendered":"Four days on the Sentier Cathare (Cathar Way) – Day 4: Duilhac-sous-Peyrepertuse – Maury"},"content":{"rendered":"

I left Duilhac at 7.30, passing by the little shop on the way to pick up some bread and a big ripe peach. I climbed for a short while and could soon look back see the castle and village perched underneath.<\/p>\n

\"Looking
Looking back at Duilhac and Peyrepertuse castle.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I passed through vineyards…<\/p>\n

\"Grapes
Grapes from the vineyard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was escorted into the nearby village of\u00a0Cucugnan by a friendly dog. \u00a0I was looking forward to reaching\u00a0Cucugnan, as I was longing for a decent coffee and hoped to find one there.<\/p>\n

\"Escort
Escort into Cucugnan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A restaurant was open, did they have coffee? \u00a0Why of course they did!<\/p>\n

I settled back and waited for the drink with some anticipation. \u00a0Would it be drinkable? Oh I so hoped it would be!<\/p>\n

And, dear reader, the coffee was a delight, the location was a delight, all was good in the world in the lovely village of Cucugnan.<\/p>\n

\"Coffee
Coffee in Cucugnan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fortified\u00a0by my coffee I left the village and started the ascent towards the Cathar fortress of\u00a0Qu\u00e9ribus. The climb was was steep, the sun was out, the temperature was rising.<\/p>\n

After 90 minutes or so I had my first full view of Qu\u00e9ribus\u00a0.<\/p>\n

\"Castle...\"
Castle Qu\u00e9ribus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was an impressive sight but so, unfortunately, \u00a0was the car park, shop and queue of tourists lined-up to visit the castle. \u00a0I was feeling a bit hot and bothered (again!) by this point and really couldn’t face the queue and final climb up to the top of the hill.<\/p>\n

So instead I sat on the shop’s ‘customers-only’ bench, drank heavily from my water bottle and admired the castle from below.<\/p>\n

The last section of my hike was a five mile descent to the town of Maury where I would catch a bus back to Quillan.<\/p>\n

While planning the hike back at home I’d found some walking guides drawn up by a resident of Maury. \u00a0One of these detailed a footpath from the town to the castle, I had \u00a0translated this and printed it off for precisely this moment.<\/p>\n

However, I looked around for a while but could find no trace of the path which meant I had to take the road down.<\/p>\n

The first part of the descent was fine as I had some great views to keep me going.<\/p>\n

\"Towards
Towards Maury<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But as I reached the valley the heat became oppressive and I longed for the town to appear around each corner. \u00a0I had finished my water by this time and only my hearty singing of marching songs kept me going.<\/p>\n

I reached Maury in the baking early afternoon. \u00a0The bus came quickly. \u00a0I arrived in Qullian an hour later, took a seat at a bar and downed a delicously cold beer. \u00a0A perfect end to an excellent hike on the\u00a0Sentier Cathare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I left Duilhac at 7.30, passing by the little shop on the way to pick up some bread and a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,15],"tags":[39,32,99,92],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2061"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2859,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061\/revisions\/2859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}