Mas Forge

Mas Forge, a hillside retreat belonging to Hedley and Anita Smith, is a truly delightful destination for a holiday, secreted away on a wooded hillside in that part of France known as Roussillon.

 

A LITTLE HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY

Roussillon, French Catalonia, is an agricultural area set deep in the south of the country, bordered by Spain to the south and the Mediterranean to the east. Comfortably obscure and less pretentious than the neighbouring Cote D'azur, even today it remains one of France's best kept secrets.

Spreading northwards from the foothills of the Pyrenees, it is a region of vivid contrasts, from the marshes and beaches of the coast up through the valleys of the rivers Tech and Tet into the Capcir plateau and the spectacular gorges and peaks of the mountains, dominated by the magnificent Canigou, the great landmark of Catalonia.

Beneath the foothills of Canigou, where the valley of the river Tet narrows dramatically into a gorge, lies the small walled town of Villefranche de Conflent. This is one of the towns that Vauban, military engineer to Louis XIV, fortified after the area finally became part of France with the treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659.

It is here that the waters of the river Cady join those of the Tet, having slipped down from the lower slopes of Canigou near the famous abbey of St Martin, through the Gorge du Cady, past the spa town of Vernet Les Bains and beneath the wooded slopes in which Mas Forge is secreted.