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Home » Destinations » Europe » France » In photos: the 2012 Occitan Piégut Félibrée!
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In photos: the 2012 Occitan Piégut Félibrée!

Last updated: November 24, 2017. Written by Laurence Norah - Leave a Comment

The title of this post is possibly a little boggling if you’re not familiar with some vaguely old French history, which I wasn’t until I did a bit of reading up around the subject. Here’s what I learnt. (Warning – history ahead. Feel free to skip to the photos section if you’re not into it. I won’t tell anyone!)

Félibrée & Occitan Facts!

Back in the day, some time after the Romans did their whole Empire thing, a region of Europe which covered much of what we know today as southern France, Monaco, some bits of Spain and a teeny bit of Italy, were united by the use of a language known as Occitan. As a result of this common language, and national borders not withstanding, this region became known as Occitania.

This language still exists today, and is an official language of Catalonia (whose other language, Catalan, is very similar), as well as Monaco and parts of Italy. Despite the majority of the speakers being based in France, and around half of France being part of “Occitania”, it is not classed as an official French language.

Felibre Sign piegut tower

So that’s the language, which has been quietly dying off since the middle ages. To help rectify this death, in 1903 a chap came up with a brilliant idea to have a massive annual party to celebrate all things Occitanian, and there have been 93 of these parties since that day, a party which is known as a félibrée, or to in Occitan: a felibrejada. With me so far? We’re nearly through, I promise.

The festival changes location every year, and this year it just happened to take place in the village down the road from me, something which happens only once every forty years or so. Handy or what!

Photos of the félibrée

The festival lasted for three days, but the decorations, which clearly took some time to put together, are up until September. And, when walking around, you can really see why they want to leave them up – this was a serious labour of hand-made love. People from all over the surrounding communes banded together to help get this thing sorted out. Everyone pulled together, and the result was absolutely spectacular. As you can see from the photos!

Felibre flower tunnel 1

Every single street was coated in these flowers. Each one hand made.

Piegut Felibre street sign decoration

Even the road signs didn’t get away with it

Piegut Felibre Church

The Piégut church was surrounded too!

Felibre Mairie Piegut France HDR 2

The local Mairie got in on the act

Flower Cross HDR Piegut 2

A cross covered in flowers. I’m sure there’s a message here.

Piegut Felibre Well decorated flowers

The village well got its own flower ring…

Piegue Felibre show

There was a show in Occitan. I had no idea what was going on, but it seemed to go down well.

Felibre flower walls

No surface was left unattended.

Flower covered carriage piegut felibre France Dordogne 2012

Even the old horse drawn carriages got the treatment!

And that was the 2012 Piégut Felibrée in photos! Next year the festival will be taking place in the town of Bergerac – is this something you might be interested in attending? Let me know in the comments!

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Home » Destinations » Europe » France » In photos: the 2012 Occitan Piégut Félibrée!

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Laurence and Jessica Norah

Hi there! We're Laurence and Jessica Norah. We've been running this site since 2010 as full time professional travel bloggers. We visit all the places we write about personally, and all our content is based on our own first hand travel experiences. We also take all the photos you see on our sites. So grab a drink, dive in, and read on! You can also find out more about us here. Comic included.
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