Carcassonne

After last night's arduous drive, we made it to Carcassonne. I had learnt most of what I needed to know about it from the board game, but it was good to see it in the "flesh". Television documentaries had also provided some of the motivation for coming. We read too that Carcassonne was the most visited part of France, after Paris. Still, it was worth it.

After checking in, we couldn't resist walking up into the citadel, where we hunted for (but didn't really need to gather) dinner. We enjoyed soups and salads, and the regional cassoulet specialty. Perhaps I could say that dessert was endured rather than enjoyed: I don't think we needed it, but it came as part of our €12.90 3-courses.

Today, after some vital knowledge working and laundry, we made a daylight assault on the citadel. Those of us who hadn't spent quite so much time reading the tourist books discovered that there was actually a castle inside the citadel, as well as a city. (And the real, main city of Carcassonne is too big to fit inside the walls, so it's outside, across the river.) Anyway, we paid our money to walk along the ramparts and explore the castle, and have a guided tour. The English tour wasn't until 3:30pm, so we had time to explore the new city, and also to purchase some luggage (valice) within which we could transport our wine purchases back to Angleterre, coping with the nonsensical liquid aviation prohibitions.

Dinner was purchased at approximately 1/6th the price of the previous night, at the local deli, and eaten inside our apartément, in order to slightly reduce the volume of aforesaid wine requiring international transit.

Here you can see the view from our apartément window, another from the bridge, and a third from below the outer wall. It really is much more impressive from the outside than from inside.