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La Cité

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    • TravelerEuropean road trip
      Day 31

      Two châteaux in one day

      September 23, 2023 in France ⋅ 🌬 22 °C

      Was cold last night, down to 1 degree as expected. We are in the mountains after all. We were organised though, nice warm duvet and jammies back on. As we left our lovely Pyrenean gorge stopover, we saw masses of people parking up and ready to hike the mountains. Beautiful, sunny day for it.
      Our first stop was at one of the many, many hundreds of chateaux in the region called Château de Puilaurens, remains of a medieval castle perched on a panoramic outcrop accessed by a steep footpath, their words. And it was striking indeed. The hike up wasn’t too bad at all, of course it’s subjective but a swift 15 minute walk took us to the ruins. Great views and a little history with our leaflet. We ambled about for a bit then motored on. Roads flattened out a bit as we came out of the Pyrenees though the towns all looked like ski resort towns. It must be a different scenery in the winter.
      Our stopover was Carcassonne, a hilltop town famous for its medieval citadel. And another chateau. We parked up just outside of the town and walked in looking for some dinner. Most of the restaurants don’t open until at least 6pm so we hung about for a bit, found a Vietnamese cafe, ate some chow and decided to look for a rock pub as it’s Saturday night! We found an Irish bar which happened to be showing the rugby World Cup (England v Chile) so stayed to watch that. When it had finished we walked back via the castle and citadel which was gorgeous at sunset. It has been laid out so everyone has access to roam through with lots of shops/bars/restaurants. Really nice. Had a wander then walked back to the van for tea and ice cream. More planning for the next few days. Lots of heavy driving coming up.      Read more

    • Zonder doel maar met richting
      Day 40

      Carcassonne

      June 10, 2022 in France ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

      De wegen worden drukker en chaotischer wanneer we Carcassonne naderen. Gelukkig kunnen we langs de rivier een heel stuk over het fietspad nemen. En dan is hij er!

      See translation
    • TravelerTour de France 2011
      Day 10

      Le Tour de France - Stage 15

      July 17, 2011 in France ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

      The camp site was perfectly situated for watching Le Tour, as the route used the access road for the site. I happened to pick a corner with no less than three groups from Wales on it. I lent my large flag to one couple from Risca, as I had also brought the small flag from my bike to the road side. I instructed them they were to guard it with their lives, as I couldn't stand the ignominy of returning home, were I to loose the colours.

      Being early in the stage, the peliton came through almost fully formed (a small chase group preceded them slightly, presumably seeking some green jersey sprint points somewhere up ahead).

      BMC cycling team seemed to be driving the pace of the peliton; stretched out in a long chain connected to the main bunch.

      I waved my flag at the Team Sky support cars that followed, and received a toot, and a wave from the first and second respectively.      Read more

    • TravelerTour de France 2011
      Day 9

      Destination Carcassonne

      July 16, 2011 in France ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

      With the mountains behind me I was flying along, and was making an averaging around 30Kph, despite my load. As I rode down the busy 4-lane road, many of the Tour de France support vehicles passed me by.

      As I took the exit from N20 for Carcassonne, I passed the hotel where team Liqui-gas were staying, and enjoyed the unusual role reversal of one of their riders, pointing at me ride by with my panniers. I gave them a wave, and carried on.

      The road to Carcassonne, was traveled by many of the tour support vehicles and caravan floats, and I was in high spirits, as many of them waved and tooted at me (including team Sky). I had a little race against the LCL time-trial float (he overtook, so I overtook him back and so on).

      Fate, sensing that I was in danger of enjoying my self then threw some quite nasty mechanical problems at me. I got yet another puncture in my front tyre and my bottom bracket started to develop a nasty issue.

      With each turn, the bracket would give an audible clunk, and send a small but perceptible vibration down my right leg. This eventually started to cause a nasty pain in my hip joint, and I found my self faced with making the last 60Km to Carcassonne, with a painful joint issue and a leaky tyre. It was quite annoying being overtaken by all the technical cars from Le tour at this point as many of them had £4,000 carbon fiber racing bikes strapped to the roof, and I was thinking "want to swap?".

      The countryside, with the red roofed buildings on the horizon and hay bales in the foreground, felt like I had stepped onto the Carcassonne playing board.

      The sun sets as I travel to Carcassonne. Shortly after the sun-set behind me a perfect Lunar Eclipse rose ahead of me. Regrettably I was too tired from constantly re-inflating my tyre and generally dealing with my ailing bike to stop and take a picture of that.

      Had I been free from issues I probably would have arrived around 20:30, but I eventually limped into the camp site at 23:20 (10 minutes before they closed for the night).

      The last, inefficient 60Km had exhausted me, so I got my tent pitched, made some Welsh cakes and then got some much needed sleep.      Read more

    • TravelerTour de France 2011
      Day 10

      Carcassonne

      July 17, 2011 in France ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

      After the tour I had the day to explore Carcassonne.

      Quite by accident, I found my self entering the city by a little used windy stair case away from the busy main gates. Approaching Carcassonne this way was made the experience somehow more authentic, than using the "tourist trap" main gates as I did later on.

      The medevil city is very pretty and it was easy to imagine my self strolling down the streets of Storm Wind in the World of Warcraft, or as a character in Assassin's creed. The awnings in this scene made me think of bouncing around like I was in a platform game.

      There were many vendors of weaponry, and I almost rose to the purchase of a sword, but was concerned about problems at customs.
      In the evening I had a meal of a local, medevil dish "casoulette".

      Tragedy struck though, as somewhere in the hustle and bustle of the city the duck and I were separated.

      I think that nothing might epitomize feeling silly quite so much as wandering a fortified town in search of one's duck and having the words "small pastique duck" spat back at you by the matredie of the restaurant where you ate, after inquiring if it had been found. Despite many hours of searching I was unable to reunite with the duck. I feel quite sad about that.

      Searching around for the duck, I found that the city had a pleasant feel to it at night. This is the main square, which has only restaurants and bars on it, providing pleasant aromas.      Read more

    • Harvey10 - Europe-bound
      2
      Day 26

      A kingfisher and some rain

      January 5 in France ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

      Wow! Beautiful uplifting sightings of a kingfisher on our walk by the beck this morning! It made up for the cold and the rain, which set in later on. Walked around Carcassonne Town itself and saw some strange and dull streets plus a really colourful one, some chique designer shops, one of which I LOVED and bought a neat little cool 2024 diary with a satisfying clasp and dinky little pencil. Saw the closest parking I have EVER seen, and some rather sad has-been faded Santas.
      We had lunch, 3 course plat de jour for €41.70 (total), (£36) including drinks. Our choices were Pate and bread, Boiled eggs with dressing, Boeuf bourgogne, Tiramasu, Apple pie and tea or coffee. No photos of food though.
      Two very old school British chaps sat fine-wining and dining. I gleaned that one was/is an academic. The way they spoke was rather stifled and dull in a repressed, British sort of way. I found their conversations entertaining and fascinating. One told the other " there's a thing called nature-nurture you know" and when describing his adult offspring, said his son loved diving and is now a cameraman for natural history films and his daughter just liked towns, and the sort of things girls like. There was talk of Brexit and one said he's still got pizazz, we should just wheel him back in again. Boris presumably.
      ... Oh and John's conversation was interesting too of course 😉. Honest John! 😃
      We had another walk up to and around the ramparts and smooched in a shop or two. Much quieter there today, so more enjoyable but not quite so photogenic, and we were cold and wet by the end of what turned out to be an 8 mile walk.      Read more

    • Harvey10 - Europe-bound
      Day 25

      Carcassonne we've arrived

      January 4 in France ⋅ ☁️ 10 °C

      So we came to check out the Carcassonne parking for campers spot. Barrier is now working (we saw online 2 days ago that it was broken), and we got a nice spot with hedges either side. €27.40 for 2 nights. (£23.70). Filled up with fuel €118 (£101.90). Cheapest deisel so far at €1.68 per litre (£1.50), just a few pence more than UK.
      Beautiful blue sky and sunshine. Walked into Carcassonne and smooched around. It was fairly busy but not too much. Quiet compared to summer I'm sure. Lots of cafes, eateries bars and gift shops. We had a beer and did a bit of people watching. Not so warm high up and walled in.
      We noticed a strange radar type effect of radiating circle rings on the buildings. Weird. See pics.
      Have just looked it up and to celebrate 20 years as a World Heretage site, 'Swiss artist Felice Varini created concentric yellow circles, which are made from aluminum and attached to the castle's walls. They will be removed in September and will not cause any lasting damage.' That was in 2018. Must have been quite a geometric feat getting them all in place around buildings!

      There's some VERY posh motorhomes here. The Swiss guy next door got out and played with a PlayStation type control, which it turns out controlled hydraulic legs to make it level. We're already on flat land for goodness sake!      Read more

    You might also know this place by the following names:

    La Cité, La Cite

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