Day Tripping Part 5: Carcassonne - the medieval-est city I have visited

Today was a continuation of the day trips I have been trying to take while in Southern France. I was most excited about traveling to Carcassonne (which is about an hour a half west of Montpellier by train). Carcassonne, I had been told by multiple sources, was supposed to be deep in history, tons of medieval folklore, a giant city surrounded by a castle and super pretty. Of course, the nature of our travels would disagree. It was already raining by the time we got to the train station. Regardless of the weather, we carried on. After wandering around the city for about an hour trying to find the poorly signed tourist office, we finally got a map of the city and were directed to the other side of the bridge where 'Old Town Carcassonne' was. The city is really beautiful, even under the rain. We visited several churches on our way to the old town. When crossing the bridge, you can see the beautiful castle structure looming overhead, high up on a hill. After walking about 20 minutes in the drizzle and passing the trailer park of Carcassonne (though this was a real camping trailer park, not an American style homestead, if you catch my drift), we arrived at the castle. They offered an English tour at 2:30PM but due to weather concerns, they threatened the cancellation. We decided to tour ourselves, no audioguides or anything. Since this is such a tourist destination, much of the castles' signage was also in English. Isn't it nice that English is everywhere?

Anyway, we figured out that much of the castle had already been destroyed throughout time and wars so much of what you see today is a recreation. The city within the castle walls had the most touristy shops and restaurants that you could ask for. Basically, you walk over the bridge and moat into the castle walls and there you have the city. Once you walk a bit further in, you come to the actual part of the castle that you can walk in after paying a fee, of course. I love the fact that rarely do they check my ID for anything so I can often get in at reduced prices. Many tourist places offer discounts to people under 25 so I just lie and normally get in. Student prices exist as well and since I have that International Student Card that I bought from Grand Valley State University a day before I left, I use that all the time too. using that card isn't even really mischevious since the University knew I didn't attend that school but sold me the card anyway. That was nice anyway! So the tour of the castle was cool. You mostly get to walk around the tourrets and on top of the city walls. We also tried not to fall due to slippery conditions. And yes, even though I am a klutz, I made it through the day without falling. Walking on top of the city walls was really neat anyway because you could see how it was constructed for battles and arrows with all the slits and holes in the walls/floors. After the castle tour, we visited a huge church within the city and then had lunch.

Searching for a lunch place was an adventure in and of itself. Since we were in such a touristy area, the menu prices were ridiculously overpriced. We nearly left the whole area to get back to the current town of Carcassonne for lunch. On the last little street that we went down, we found a little tapas cafe. This was most definitely more of a locals place which suited us just fine and so did the price. I had a sort of pumpkin soup which was quite tasty indeed with fresh parmasean on top. The cheese ravioli was wonderful as well, though I felt the portion was rather small. The cheese on top was baked on which made it even tastier. Of course, we had local Carcassonne table wine which we ended up buying a bottle of on our way out of town.

One of the churches we saw:


After old town Carcassonne, we wandered around the current city which was a little boring on a whole. Besides some churches, it was getting too nasty out to really enjoy any sights. Even their Christmas market was mostly closed down. We found this great tea shop for an afternoon snack (crepes of course) and some really interesting tea. I find myself really becoming a tea connoisseur so I love tasting new loose leaf tea combinations in every place I can. This place did not disappoint even if the crepe was only so-so. I really enjoyed going to Carcassonne even if the weather didn't cooperate.

Here I am on the draw bridge going into old town Carcassonne: