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Bastille Day
Entry 11 of 18 | show all | print this entry |
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Monday July 14th, was Bastille Day, a French national holiday, that recognizes the storming of the Bastille (a prison), in 1789 and marked the beginning of the French Revolution. Brian's co-workers had been encouraging us to visit Carcassonne to see the "City of Fire" fireworks After being told that the usual 1 hour car ride would become about 7 hours after the fireworks, we decided to see if we could get a train ticket instead. To our surprise, 3 days before Bastille Day, we were able to obtain two tickets. Our scheduled return train was at midnight and the City of Fire was set to start at 10:30pm and end by 11pm. However, the lady at the ticket counter warned us that it would be very busy and we should plan to find a location where we could quickly get to the train station when the fireworks were over.
We arrived in Carcassonne around 2pm and spent the afternoon seeing the sites. On the walk to the walled city we decided to take a detour and see the L'Aude, a river that runs next to the city. We had a picnic lunch on the bank of the river and enjoyed the shade of the trees. When we arrived Brian was very excited to see the city he has heard so much about. We toured the castle and spent the afternoon looking in shops and learning about the walled city. Around 6 pm we decided to go look for dinner outside of the walls. The city was getting very busy as people started to arrive to see the Bastille day celebration.
When we left the walled city we were shocked to see the thousands of people already starting to line the banks of the L'Aude and starting to fill the bridges. We decided to grab a quick dinner at a local grocery store and find a place to sit. After some deliberation we decided to sit on the Pont Neuf Bridge. When we sat down there were already three to four thousand people on the bridge. As the evening progressed the bridge was so packed that everyone was standing shoulder to shoulder to see the fireworks. I am not usually a very claustrophobic person, but we very quickly realized that we were trapped on the bridge with a ton of people. Needless to say it was really busy. When we returned I did some research on the event and it was estimated that there were 700,000 people crowded onto the banks and bridges of the L'Aude River to watch the city be set ablaze.
A
fter waiting for hours the fireworks started. At first, it seemed like we were just going to see a typical firework display, but as the celebration continued they set the city ablaze. Using what we guessed as thousands of flares they created the illusion that the city was on fire. It was very realistic, especially with the smoke of the fireworks still in the air. After letting the city "burn" they used what looked like sparklers to give the illusion of putting the fire out with water. It was one of the neatest firework displays we had ever seen and we decided that all the waiting was worth it. Our pictures do not do justice to this amazing display.
After the display was complete we headed to the train station to find that our train was delayed by a half-hour. When our train came we were both surprised to find we were seated in a sleeper car. All of the seats laid back and everyone was sleeping when we got on the train. We found our seats, Brian tried to sleep (he had to go to work the next day), and I stayed awake to watch for our stop. It was pretty weird to be on a train with people snoring. After a long, but fun day we were very excited to get home and get a good night's rest.
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