It’s been a while since my last Europe update. I’m already starting to forget stuff… sigh. Anyway, to refresh our collective memories, please read E08: Carcassonne – Part One.
After a night’s rest, BlueOrca and I had the morning and early afternoon to explore inner Carcassonne. BlueOrca and I spent the night in separate rooms because the reservation system said there were no co-ed rooms at this hostel. I found out that was not the case later, as some of BlueOrca’s roommates were of the heterogametic flavour. I was placed in a double’s room with one bunk bed and a private bathroom.
Anyway, my roommate got up quite early in the morning and since he woke me up, I decided to catch some sunrise photos. Unfortunately, as I was waiting for him to finish up in the bathroom, I dozed off again. Next time I woke up, it was my alarm going off. sigh.
I suspect a school was having a big field trip (how come I didn’t have such cool field trips when I was in elementary school). A good number of the kids stayed on my floor. I felt as if a freight train was running by my room as they ran through the hallway. One of the kids was playing with the door knob to my room while I was brushing my teeth. I almost wanted to open the door and have the kid fall into the room while I say BONJOUR with a toothbrush in my mouth. :D These kids ended up swamping the breakfast room. We were forced to sit in the common area to eat.
My room was on the 3rd floor and from my window, I could have climbed up onto the roof. It would have definitely make for some interesting shots, but I didn’t risk it. Above is a shot towards the keep from the 3rd floor hallway. I love the rooftop tiles and how the keep rises above all else in Carcassonne.
After tucking our packs at the base of the stairwell, BlueOrca and I explored the city. We stopped by the keep first, which was just around the corner from the hostel. The sign on the left asked that we use the entrance to the right. For some reason, we didn’t realize that the closed gate meant the keep wasn’t opened yet. We saw people inside, so we incorrectly presumed there must be another entrance! We walked down the street to the right searching for the entrance. Came back 15 minutes later to find this gate opened. :)
It was nearing 10am in the morning, so I'd expected the streets of this ancient city to be more busy. The keep wasn’t opened yet either, so maybe late starts are normal for this community. I also have a thing for clobberstone streets. Strolling along these Carcassonne streets totally reminded me of Rothenburg (still my favourite medieval town). Both cities have an awesome medieval feel.
We somehow found our way down to what used to be the moat protecting the keep. The water’s all gone now leaving rough patches of grass that seems to not have been maintained for a while. There were weeds growing all over, kind of like my front lawn. :P
The photo on the right is the bridge over the moat leading into the keep. Now that I know more about the fortifications of the castle, it’s kind of scary to think of all the traps that await the unwelcome visitor. I had very little knowledge when I first took this photo. The keep is quite the engineering marvel now that I think about it.
We soon gained entrance to the keep. While I was crossing the bridge, some lady pointed at my tripod and said “forbidden”. Yes madam.
Once we got behind those towers, we entered a very big southern courtyard of Carcassonne. There were two giant trees in the middle providing shade for much of the courtyard - seemed like a wonderful place to relax. I had wondered what the courtyard was like in the past. Probably reeked of horse manure. :P
From this courtyard, we passed into a second one before going inside the main keep building. Saw a very cool video on the history of Carcassonne and the restoration efforts by Viollet-le-Duc. While some of the decisions Viollet made in certain aspects of the castle restoration were controversial, this man's mission and efforts to restore Carcassonne a hundred years ago is the reason why there’s still such an impressive castle left for me to visit today. What a great legacy.
After the video, we went through the rest of the building, seeing some drawings of Carcassonne at various points in its history. The fort has undergone a lot of additions and renovations over its storied 2,500 year history. The museum also had a very cool model of the entire fort.
The rest of the keep tour was essentially around the enclosures atop of the castle walls. This was my favourite part of the entire tour. First, you get these spectacular views of Carcassonne's surroundings. This is lower Carcassonne towards the river.
Second, you get an awesome view of the castle itself. After the history lessons, I started recognizing the different aspects of the castle. For example, in this photo, you see three different types of tops on the towers. The flat ones date back two millennia to the Roman days, the pyramid ones date to the 8th century, while the cones were the most recent (12-13th century). I cannot remember much more than that! lol.
Finally, along these walls, you get to see all the cool defenses of the castle! From the converging arrow loops, double portcullis in the hoardings over the entrance gates(so cool) to the semi circle entrance ring known as the barbican, it’s hard not to appreciate that this fort was built for protection of its inhabitants. Every single stone and design was laid out to provide a military advantage. This fort wasn’t built as a pretty attraction for Tochi to visit in the 21st century. I also found it cool that a lot of the defense mechanisms were duplicated as well, in case there are traitors within the castle.
I want to mention, this is one of several places on the trip where I had stopped taking photographs, and just sat back and took in the scenery and the moment. So cool.
We wrapped up our tour of the keep in the gift shop (surprise surprise!). BlueOrca and I both wanted to pick something from Carcassonne, but had a hard time finding something cool. I almost picked up a book on the history of Carcassonne (definitely fun reading for the long train rides), but I didn’t want to carry it. It’ll get crumpled in my backpack anyway. We ended up minting our own gold Carcassonne coins at one of those vending machines. Not a geocoin, but we’ll settle, just because this is Carcassonne.
After the visit to the keep, we strolled through the town visiting some of the little boutique shops and starring into some of the fancy little restaurants and bakeries. At one of the shops, I saw these bright plastic sword and shield combo. I really wanted to grab them and ask BlueOrca to take a picture. Unfortunately, I’m not meant to be a knight. I couldn’t figure out how to untangle the mess of string that tied the pair to the stand. :(
We also took a stop at Saint Nazaire and Saint-Celse Basilica, the main church within Carcassonne. It was rather dark inside the church and some folks were praying. I saw the Northern rosace in the cathedral, which made me think of Chrono Trigger and Zelda for some reason. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a big circular stain-glass window before. With the deep history in this place, maybe this IS the long lost Temple of Time. I mean, this church is named after Saint-Celse, which must be the french spelling for Celes. Anyway, we spent quite a bit of time in the church. I found out that BlueOrca is very much a photographing-church person. :D
We stopped by the arena which happened to be closed to the public. Proceeded outside to the expanse between the inner and outer walls. Ran around in the opened area before looping back around the ramparts towards to entrance with the geocache. After some time, we still couldn’t find the darn thing.
Our train was leaving at 4:30pm, so we were forced to leave the fort and head back to the train station. On the way, we had to stop by the Aude gate to grab the corresponding daytime shot. Within the 10 second timer on my camera, I had to run 20-30ft and get into my my pose, all while carrying my backpack. Not an easy feat! A bunch of ladies watching all this action applauded my efforts after the picture was taken. I felt a bit embarrassed that I forgot to bow. lol.
We traversed back across the old bridge towards the current town of Carcassonne. There used to be a big rivalry in the past between the town by the river with the folks in the castle. As the strategic importance of Carcassonne diminished with the signing of Treaty of the Pyrenees (Carcassonne was no longer on the French-Spanish border), the fort was not really necessary for protection and hence people started moving closer to the river.
BlueOrca needed to exchange her traveler cheques again, but we were cutting super close to our train’s departure time (we hadn’t gotten tickets yet!). Found out that in France, the post office is the place to cash traveler cheques. There was quite a line at the post office cashiers. A little bit anxious and worried, I strongly referenced the time, or the lack thereof, to BlueOrca several times. However, BlueOrca seemed adamant about getting cash. –_-; I don’t know how she does it - leaving things down to the wire so often! I’d have a nervous breakdown if this continues. In the meantime, I went to buy some stamps for the various postcards we had collected. We would have mailed the fateful card here, but BlueOrca suggested we send it to someone’s workplace, for which we didn’t have the address yet. :P
We got to the train station and managed to pick up our tickets in time. Good thing we had First Class Europasses. Despite being 4:30pm, we did not have lunch yet, so we picked up some 1 Euro snacks (Hit) from the convenience store in the station. The train soon arrived and we were off to Montpellier onward to Marseille!
Final Thoughts
Carcassonne at night is truly a spectacular sight, with no parallels. This experience alone would have made the entire E08 trip worthwhile for me. Carcassonne is such a great exquisite little town in the French countryside. You can feel so much history in its lands. A full day and night at Carcassonne is enough to experience her treasures. Totally worth the small detour to pay a visit. Since Barcelona was 5/5, and Carcassonne, in different ways, was so much cooler, I must give her a 10/5. :D
I had totally forgotten about the tripod being forbidden (I only remembered it clearly for another location :P). And had I known about the sword + shield combo, I would have helped you untangle that mess! Hehe. Awesome read.