Carcassonne

After little sleep and a couple of boring-ass train rides, we arrived in Carcassonne (Warning: Major history talk in this one!)

Narrow streets in Ville Basse

 Immediately upon leaving the train station, I turned to Stephanie and announced my first “tour guide moment.” We were standing at the Canal Midi, which is the only canal in Europe that connects the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. We continued wandering through town (I was basically trying to lead us to the historic city from the memory of a rather simple and crappy map) and came across a large farmer’s market, and then a flea market.

Again, a lot like Denio's

 After waiting patiently for Stephanie to finish her make-up shopping, I dragged her through the flea market and onto the Pont Neuf, opening the view of the Pont Vieux and La Cité (or the “Old Bridge” and the fortified “City”). It was at this point finally that Stephanie truly understood my love affair with castles. We wasted no more time in making our way up to the castle, skipping the streets that led around the castle and instead opting to climb the motte itself (the motte is the large hill that the castle is situated on).

Castle or City? Take your pick.

 La Cité, even though I continually call it a castle, is not actually a castle. It’s technically a citadel: a fortified city. There is a castle inside of it, but there is also an entire city inside. We continued walking around the city (surrounded by 2 miles of walls containing 53 towers), through the moats, and up and down hills until we came to the front door: the Narbonne Gate.

Not Nottingham Castle, but it plays one on TV.

 At the Narbonne Gate is found a Neo-Gothic reproduction of the bust of Madame Carcas. The legend goes thusly: during the late 700s AD, Charlemagne himself was besieging La Cité, and his army had stood before its walls for three years. The people within were slowly starving to death and were down to the last of their food stores before they would have to give up. But Madame Carcas had a plan. She took the last pig left in the town and fattened it up with the last of the food. Then they strapped the pig onto a catapult and launched it at the French. The French, seeing the pig, believed that the inhabitants of the city had food a-plenty because they could afford to launch such a fat pig over the walls. Disheartened, the French gave up and went home. The inhabitants of the city, in celebration, rang the bells (sonne in French). So, therefore, Carcas-Sonne. That story is a load of crap, by the way. The ancient Celts called the hill site Carsac, a common Celtic place name. The Romans came and changed the name to Carsaco which later seems to have become Carcasum. Carcassonne is just a “French-ified” version of that name.

Madame Carcas: not really much of a looker.

 Instead of heading straight in through the Porte Narbonnais we walked along the outer walls, where I was able to identify for Stephanie the difference between the original Roman foundations and the later Medieval improvements (yes, she did get really bored of my today). Finally, we entered the city through the southern gate, which I don’t know the name of.

And yes, there's cars in the castle.

 Here we came to the Basilique St. Nazaire, which is a fairly unique church. Once you enter it, you may be struck by the difference between the apse area and the nave area. The church was originally Romanesque in style. When the French finally conquered the city after the Albigensian Crusade in the mid-1200s, they sought to tear down the Romanesque cathedral and replace it with a Gothic one to symbolize their power. Sadly, this took a lot of time and money, and by 1337, they had only torn down and replaced the apse. What’s so important about 1337, you ask? That’s the year the Hundred Years’ War started between France and England. France couldn’t afford to replace any more of the church, so it remains half-Romanesque and half-Gothic.

We cut diagonally across the city and ended up walking between the inner and outer walls again before re-entering the city next to the castle. There we found some re-enactors, and I got very excited. Until they threw us out because we weren’t members of any of the groups. So it’s good to know that renaissance guilds in France are as big douchebags as those in America.

I totally dress better than these guys.

 We entered the castle (for free because we’re students!) and began looking around. The cool thing about this castle is that its hoardings and ramparts have been restored, which makes it one of the few examples I know of anywhere. There’s also a great museum of medieval sculpture.

I love the wooden extensions, and they're so freaking rare.

 After the castle we turned more towards souvenir shopping. I was looking for a sword, and there were plenty of swords in the city, but they all sucked. I found one that seemed to be possibly worth buying. But I also found a helmet and some gauntlets that I liked. There was also a store dedicated entirely to historical re-enactment which had some awesome medieval clothes. In the end, though, I only bought myself a small tapestry. I do, however, plan on going back to Carcassonne before the end of the semester, so we’ll see what happens. I’ve got to start looking around town for a big-ol-box to send home all of these souvenirs.

So, just in case you couldn't tell... this is the BACK door to the castle.

 We ran out of time in Carcassonne and had to head back to the train station. We had an hour-and-a-half stopover in Toulouse, so we walked into town. We didn’t get very far, but got to see a street band and go into the Virgin Megastore, where I found the CD I’ve been looking for since I came to france. Then, it was just a long train ride home after that.