Residence La Barbacane Carcassonne

... that belonged to a family in the 11th century. Then the French king took it over at some point and it was expanded in the 12th & 13th centuries. At least, that's what Conrad gathered. It wasn't what I thought it would be. I expected it to just be a castle surrounded by buildings that we just got to walk through and look at. This was partly true. But, inside the ...

... to me by one of the girls. I was extremely careful not to touch ANYTHING except the door handle. When I was done I was horrified to find the door wouldn’t open!!! After a few moments panic I realized there was a button to press to release it, such relief! I felt horrible though, and my thongs were sticky for ages after I walked out. Yuck!

That over with we went for a wander around the town, checking out some of the shops and wandering along the walls of the fortress ...

... bus office before it closes at 12:30 for lunch. The office which had lots of customers in it is now empty and my bag is in the corner, sticking out. I pretend as though everything is normal. I as k a question then pick up my bag.

The train station is a 20 minute walk. I have enough time to stop into a lovely, local restaurant. I have some melon with ham then duck. Very nice.

I take the train to Carcassonne. The trains are pretty nice for the most part ...

... there. You can either pay to go into the castle and explore or do what I did and pay to watch a very cheesy Jousting show. The whole thing was in French but it was pretty entertaining. There was good guys and bad guys and you had to boo and cheer. They did the jousts and then it usually lead to hand to hand combat with ...

... was a fantastic day.

The area is beautiful and it is so freaking hot it isn't funny (35 in the shade today). I am so glad I came here, I think this tops Torricella.

I am going to try and get in to see the walled city some time this week - they do a jousting match each day which I think would be pretty entertaining.

Woot!

... they did make me giggle. Another turn up for the books, they've both been to the Annapurna Sanctuary in Nepal, now that's impressive, couldn't get further away from the Costa Del Sol.

Am off now to pack the tent and jump on a bus to the airport. As long as the flight is on time, we'll arrive back in Fos at 9:30 this evening and embark on the wilderness section tomorrow morning. I'm hoping we'll ...

... not the highlight I was expecting. The Cite had been restored to it's former glory in the late 18th century. It is magnificent but, again, so much commercialism. The chateau was closed |(as a political protest apparently) which meant we couldn't walk on the ramparts either. We did spend the day wandering around the Cite and the Bastide. With our B&B being about 1 block from the site it was an easy day of little driving. At night the Cite is lit up which is really quite beautiful ...

... in 100BC, and several of the Roman style towers were preserved. It became an important outpost to protect the region from invading Saracens and Aragones from Spain. Eventually it became a stronghold of the Cathars in the Albigensian Crusades (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensi an_Crusade) of the 1200s. The Cathars were eventually forced to surrender, and by 1250 the Cité had become part of the kingdom of France. As we walked to the main gates I saw a ...