Old Town Arties

"In the Middle Ages, the place was known as Artis, Arters, and D'Artiers. Around 1130, the Templar Order received land at this site, next to a ruined pre-Romanesque sanctuary. The Templars restored it to use as a chapel for the small fortress they erected to defend their domains. They also built a hermitage nearby in honor of the Templar saint Sant Pelegrí, to which pilgrims still attend on June 25, after the burning of the "St. John's fir." During the "crusade" against the Cathars, the Templar enclaves of Arties and the neighboring Gessa dels Templers served as an escape route and refuge for persecuted Occitans, according to documents and legends about Sant Pelegrí. Of the Templar castle of Entransaigües, only a circular tower remains. In its shadow, and once defended by its walls, stood the chapel of Our Lady of Arties. The Templars must have inherited an 11th-century building here, which, due to its ruin or small size, they rebuilt in the 12th century and enlarged in the 13th. When, in the 14th century, the Order of the Temple disappeared and its buildings passed to the Sanjuanistas, new renovations were carried out, which were repeated when the town of Arties was moved to this location and the chapel became a parish church. In subsequent centuries, repairs and additions continued, with a persistence worthy of a better cause. The building, which houses the 12th-century image of Santa María del Remei, is today an enormous architectural puzzle, in which centuries of construction, ruins, and reconstruction have resulted in a jumble of sacred stones. It seems as if that genius of the Ancient Pyrenean Religion, the "Cojitranco" or "Erulet", eternal rival of the Templar Saint Pelegrí, had been turning over the ashlars of the chapel, moving everything around until the building was completely ruined. We are looking at a temple with three naves and a triple head, with a barrel vault and smooth, cylindrical pillars, without sculptures, which follows the general lines of Lombard Romanesque, typical of these regions in the 12th and 13th centuries. Obviously, the Romanesque frescoes inside have been lost, but some late Gothic and Renaissance frescoes from the 15th and 16th centuries have survived, with magnificent scenes of the Last Judgement. In the Lombard temple, some elements of the previous construction, from the 11th century, were integrated, such as the ashlars with rough reliefs, plants and animals, which are located above some windows. This is in general terms, because as soon as we get into the details, chaos ensues. The south portal, with three simple archivolts, made of radially cut, unsculpted ashlars, appears to have been a late renovation to replace the original Romanesque one, with carved archivolts on columns. Its missing elements seem to be found, at least in part, in the strange, Gothic-looking south window, built from stone "offcuts," with smooth, checkered beaded ashlars and columns, clearly Romanesque.
The tower, although late Gothic (13th-14th centuries), also with later additions, attempts to follow the Romanesque model, based on openings that increase in number with height.
Otherwise, all the walls of the church display an anarchic mix of ashlars, with different shapes and sizes, some enormous, others tiny, some well squared, most placed haphazardly. To top it off, we have those massive buttresses on the south side, and the various added buildings, such as the sacristy and auxiliary rooms."

Ahlam Chtouki hamido

"The town has a lot of charm, rivers, churches, but everything is very expensive."

Bella

"Of the town's castle, only the tower and a tiny portion of the wall remain. Seeing it in person gives you an idea of what the castle would have looked like. I don't understand why they write reviews of this attraction that don't mention anything about the castle. It should be deleted or removed."

Lluis Higini Melero Peris