After driving down south for three hours, we've spent the last two days and three nights in the walled city of Carcassonne. Our hotel here has tons of room, a nice pool, and it's right across the street from the main gate of the city.
Carcassonne was a key city in this area of the world for hundreds of years. It was a center for the Cathars, a Christian group that diverged from the Pope in believing that material things were evil, holding animal life and human life as equally sacred (and were thus vegetarians), and in reincarnation. During the early to mid 13th century, the Pope wanted to make the point that Rome was Christianity, and he called a crusade against the Cathars. This dovetailed nicely with the king of France wanting to consolidate his grip on southern France, and during the crusade thousands of Cathars were killed and many of the rest chased into hiding. Carcassonne was one of the cities where the Cathars had been tolerated, and the French ended up booting everyone out of the city, and they took over. Carcassonne remained important up until the time the border with Spain was moved farther south, when it lost it's relevance.
Still, it's an amazing sight, especially at night. During the day, the middle of the city is filled with tourists browsing the many tourist shops and restaurants. However, the areas between the inner and outer walls remains quite uncrowded and impressive to walk through. It's at dusk and night though when the city really comes alive - not with people, because most of the tourists are gone - but walking the ramparts and city at night, with the lights playing off all the old towers, is really an experience that can take you back hundreds of years.
Trish and I imbibed in a local dish, cassoulet, which is a white bean stew in which they mix in duck, or pork and usually a sausage of some kind. You can make it from scratch, or local grocery stores sell it in cans ready to just heat up and eat. It got thumbs up from both of us.
Today we also took a drive down to a mountain top fortress of Peyrepertuse. We took the scenic route, which led us to almost 2 hours of driving down some beautiful river valley, but on a 1 1/2 lane two-way road the whole way. I'm glad Trish was driving because I would have been worn out. Peyrepertuse itself is on the very top of a foothill of the Pyrenees (imagine a stone castle on top of one of the Flatirons outside of Boulder and you can get a feel), one of several fortresses that dominated the area. These are so high up that you can see the ocean 40 miles away from on top. They are so ridiculously secure on their mountain tops that nobody tried to storm them. Personally, if I was battling against I would have just ignored them - I'm not sure what the defenders could have done stuck on their mountains, even if they were secure. Still, they were definitely a statement that could be seen from a long distance - "we are here and you aren't kicking us out." As I told Trish though, as I stood in the ramparts looking down the cliff, I could not help but picture myself as the French Taunter from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."
Friday we are off towards Provence, to see France's #2 tourist spot (after Paris), the Pont du Gard Roman aquaduct.
Sophie exploring the Beynac castle
Sophie's elephant Tarrence watches the drive from the dashboard
Sophie and Noelle try the carousel outside of the Carcassonne city gates
Playing the board game "Carcassonne" in Carcassonne - we brought it with us just so we could say we did that
Pete and Sophie with Carcassonne in the background
Marie and one of the hotel dogs - this was the older one, and they also had a younger chocolate lab and a very cute cat all of whom loved scratches and pets from the girls
Example of one of the French roads, lined with trees
The fortress city of Carcassonne, with the main castle seen on the right, and both inner and outer walls visible
The girl walk the lices ("lists" in English), the area between the inner and outer wall on a beautifully warm summer night. In olden times they would have markets, fairs or jousts in the lices.
Sophie and Marie after a particularly good dinner
Trish and Noelle enjoying dinner on a particularly picturesque place (like piazza in in Italy) in Carcassonne
Noelle and gargoyle - which is which?
Sophie looking out from a castle window onto the roofs of Carcassonne - those slate conic roofs are actually from the 1800s, when Carcassonne was completely restored
Trish and Sophie on the Carcassonne ramparts
The fortress of Peyrepertuse, on top of a mountain
Pete, in Peyrepertuse, after having trudged up the trail from the visitor center
Pete at the top part of Peyrepertuse, with the lower section in the background and the Pyrenees foothills in the background - this castle was not restored, and so you had to have some imagination to figure out what it originally looked like
Trish sits at a ledge in Peyrepertuse reading the map and looking out towards the ocean 40 miles way
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