Hannibal Bike Tour History – Crusades and riding through Cathar Country in France

When you think of the Crusades you most often think of fanatical Catholic knights charging off to kill non-believers. However, the truth is, they sometimes didn’t go far to begin their killing! Carcassonne was the target of an internal Crusade in the early 13th century to eliminate Catharism, an offshoot of the Catholic religion. Catharism, as they go, had some positive outlooks and was fairly harmless – woman were seen as equals, they believed in reincarnation and somewhat surprisingly they were pescatarian or vegetarians!

Col Agnel – Hannibal Odyssey Bike Tour History

We’ve had a lot of dealing with Graeme Fife the cycling journalist. It transpires that he was a Classics professor before focussing on cycling. He sent us the following regarding Col Agnel that is pictured – The Agnel pass has seen a lot of action, one way and another, details listed on a large rock stele up the valley.