Carcassonne 20th November

20^th November,  Narbonne to Carcassonne

We left Narbonne at about ten thirty, headed north west to Carcassonne which is about 70 kms away.

It was an easy and uneventful drive, and we found the medieval city and car park for the truck easily enough. The weather wasn’t great, but at least by the time we arrived in Carcassonne there was no rain, and even a hint of sunshine, though it wasn’t overly warm.

Carcassonne is a walled medieval city with a rich history of sieges and overthrows going back nine centuries. La cite is the medieval and walled part, up on a hill overlooking the more modern (but still centuries old) second part of the city. We spent our time at the older part of the town, entering the walls through a series of great arches. The walls of the city are completely intact, with 52 turrets around them, in the Northern style of steep roofs. Some are covered with dark grey slate, but a few have orange tiles, it looks like a picture book illustration. We shopped or more correctly browsed around the streets before stopping for what was supposed to be a coffee, however, a cup of coffee turned into a full-blown lunch, partly because it was warm and comfortable inside, and partly because it was getting that time and our tummies were a bit grumbly and we had hardly started our exploring and couldn’t be bothered going back to the truck for food. Well the coffee was OK, the food –overpriced and not very pleasant, not quite as bad as that we had at Calatayud, but not far behind and I think a lot more expensive.

We left there, me feeling a little aggrieved at the cost of foul food, but looking through the lovely walled city quickly put paid to my grumps. We headed towards the castle stopping when something took our eye, and paid our admission (8.50 for me and Di, free for Hilary) which wasn’t too bad for a castle/property especially compared to England. The woman at the ticket office told us there would be a free guided tour of the walls and ramparts (in English) in three quarters of an hour, so we went exploring around the shops and some of the outside walls while we waited for the tour to begin. Our guide was very good, excellent English (and I noticed on her badge it said she also spoke Spanish, Italian and Japanese plus obviously French) we also wondered if she spoke the native local language called “Oc” which was the language spoken when the area was independent in the 1100s, In fact the area was so influential (with the Cathar religion) that Pope Innocent (yeah right!!!!) III called for a siege against them, and Carcassonne was besieged and surrendered. At that time the original walls that had been built in the 4^th century were in place, but as a result of that later siege in 1226 the current fortified walls were erected. Carcassonne was an important military/strategic site until 1659 as it protected the Aragon(Spain)/French border, however when the Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed in 1659, the border moved further south and the same tensions no longer existed so Carcassonne became run down. In the 19^th century however when an architect from the north of France, Viollet-le-Duc re restored the city, giving it back its medieval look (though it wasn’t completely in keeping with the architecture of the south, where flat roofs were the norm as there is very little snow in the south).

They used to roll these stone balls, along with boiling resin, down "murder holes" onto invading armies. Nasty!!

Our guide took us around the walls and described and explained various features to us, along with the history. Inside the castle grounds she showed us different architectural features, including marks on the walls and different styles which showed the different building programmes the complex had undergone, from a one storied original building to the three storeys it is now, but I can’t keep up with why and when all the changes happened other than to say over the centuries many people have built there, many have seiged it, others have added to it, others have fortified it, and then more fortification and then falling down, and then restoration and then, some weird totally out of character and not fitting with anything at all about the building in 1962 addition ……… yeah well who knows, but it is a cool looking place, with great views….. .   

After the tour we ended up by the Basilica (it used to be the Cathedral, but there’s a new one, so this one was upgraded to Basilica so as not to feel put out) and had a look around in there. Beautiful rose windows, otherwise I can’t actually remember and it was only a day ago (I must have reached saturation).

We went back to the truck and though we could have stayed there in the car-park decided to head  a bit further west towards Toulouse to a camp spot that had a few other facilities. It was getting dark and starting to drizzle a bit by now, but we set off the 10 kms or so, pretty country- side with tree lined roads and different tones of brown paddocks. We found the spot, very inaccessible at the best of times, and there was a group of blokes playing petanque in the middle of it. We had two options keep going west to the next town and hope to find a camping spot at a vineyard near there which was in our book, or return to Carcassonne and park in the parking lot we knew about, which was easy to find, and though it had no facilities, was adequate for a night. We chose the latter as it was raining quite heavily now, and though it wasn’t much past five, dark. So that’s what we did, back-tracked and pulled in to the lot where there were by now about ten campervans parked in a long row.

We settled in, made dinner, and then I decided to go for a walk. We had noticed on our way back into town that the old city was lit up and there was a great view from a modern bridge in the “new town” looking up past an old Roman bridge to the golden sandstone walls and turrets on the hill, so I set of with camera and Jo’s gorilla (tripod, remember) to see what I could find. It was a nice walk, except that when I arrived on the middle of the bridge, camera ready to try to capture a perfect shot, the heavens opened and the camera lens became covered in drops (as did I). The photos weren’t any good at all, but I remember what it looked like and it was glorious!!!!!! 

And the Roman bridge was even lit from underneath by a subtle set of lights in hues of blue and pink through purple (subtle I said).  So I slopped my way back up the hill, through the narrow and very quiet streets to the others at the truck, and settled in for a hot cup of tea.