This weekend, I went to Carcassonne, a lovely fortified city that is a three hour train ride from Bordeaux. Since I have no idea how to put pictures on my blog, I’m just going to tell you to look it up on Wikipedia, since they probably have better photos than I would have, if I had remembered to bring my camera. I realized this on the tram to the train station, had a mild panic attack, and seriously considered going back home to get it. Thankfully Lindsay, who was sitting next to me, answered in the affirmative when I asked her if she had a picture-taking device. However, her computer hard drive is full and therefore she has to wait for her mom to bring her an external hard drive next week before she can put the pictures on her computer. Quelle chance.
After our lovely 3-hour train ride, which, unlike the one home from Biarritz, lacked any noxious odors, we arrived in Carcassonne. Technically, we arrived in the lower city of Carcassonne, the basin that the peasants expanded into after the space inside the city was filled by various royal buildings. We walked around the basin a little, located the Office of Tourisme, and procured a map, at which point we began our lovely walk to the castle.
You have to walk up a hill to get to the castle, which is on the other side of the river from the basin… luckily, this river came equipped with a handy-dandy pedestrian only walkway! As we rounded the curve on our walk, the city appeared in front of us… and darn it, it was pretty dang cool. Like way cool. Like totally cool. Like the coolest thing I’ve seen since I got to France cool. A huge, medieval walled city sitting on a hill, complete with drawbridge and dry moat.
Entrance into the city is free; everything else in the city is not. The first goal of the day was to locate someplace for lunch. We settled on a nice little place with a nice view of the chateau (inside the city, basically where all the royals hung out) covered patio and overly friendly waiter. We got the meal deal, meaning a glass of wine (starting that at 12pm on an empty stomach was probably not the brightest of ideas), salad (I think they just chopped up a head of lettuce, added some vinaigrette, and put the whole thing in a bowl… one for each of us), and a Cassoulet all for the bargain price of 11 euros. And what, you ask, is a Cassoulet? Well, it is a regional dish that is basically compiled of beans (haricots… white beans), a chopped up onion, some spices, a little cheese on top, and a sausage as a garnish. This is then baked in a large ceramic bowl until nice and thick. Deliciousness. Needless to say, I enjoyed the cassoulet so much that I not only ate all of mine but half of Lindsay’s as well… the waiter evidently noticed this, because when he asked if we wanted dessert, he made a comment to the effect of “Are you sure you don’t want any? She can eat both of them…” Thaaaaaanks, French waiter man. Thanks.
After this, we moseyed around the chateau and became experts on the construction, destruction, and reconstruction of the city. We also took a lot of weird pictures and hit up the gift shop… I now have a foot-long cylindrical eraser about half an inch in diameter that says “Cité de Carcassonne” on it… useless souvenir? I think not!
Following a trip to our hostel to check in and drop off our stuff (the hostel tthat was, might I add, in the middle of the walled ancient city?! In the middle! Of the city! And there was a vending machine in the lobby! The lobby of the hostel that was in the middle of the medieval city!), we ventured around the ramparts and went on a walk around the city perimeter. At this point in the trip, a goal was fulfilled… we went to CARCASSonne, and although the name is completely unrelated to any kind of carcass at all (it is named after Dame Carcas, who once outsmarted some invaders and used the bells to call the soldiers to attention, therefore ambushing the unsuspecting invaders… anyway, the point is that her name is Carcas and “to ring” in French is “sonner,” so when conjugated its “Carcas sonne” or “Carcas rings”), it was determined that we had to find a carcass at some point. Although we took numerous pictures of the numerous Dame Carcas statues, I was fully prepared to lie on the floor and play dead if necessary… it turns out that a crow had met its untimely demise via a collision with the ground… carcass found.
After some more souvenir shopping and store-browsing, we met up with our new-found friends Eric and Maxime for one last photo op before their train departed. Post-réunion, we headed back to the hostel, where I read and Lindsay took a nap (there was also some cell phone Sudoku involved) and then went out into the blustery night to find a cheap place to eat dinner. This was rapidly accomplished, as their meal-deal time limit was about to expire… once again, more delicious food, but we stayed away from the Cassoulet. The waiter could tell that we were not French, and when we told him we were from California, he proceeded to ask if we had any dollars… I was extremely confused until he explained that it was for his collection… I handed over a twenty (don’t ask why I was carrying American dollars around… I have no idea) and to my surprise, he handed me 20 euros… that is by far the best exchange rate that anyone has ever gotten in a Euro-Dollar transaction in a really long time… ah, the French.
The next morning, we enjoyed our free breaky and took one last walk around the city, touring the cathedral and theatre that we didn’t see the day before. We collected our belongings and hopped a train to Narbonne, where there was a lot more really cool old stuff to see, like a huge unfinished cathedral that now houses the mayors office and a ton more stuff, some documents from the 900s or so, and a lot of interesting art. After some lunch and some free exhibits, we returned to Carcassonne (where it happened to be raining), wandered around the basin, and took our train home.
The city is quite spectacular, and like I said, the coolest thing I’ve seen since I got here almost two months ago… I’m so glad I have the eraser to remember it by….
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