Day 418: City of Carcassonne

Today was a classic castle day. Carcassonne is a town in south-western France that's home to a castle of the same name, basically unchanged since the middle ages. It's considered one of the most intact and best preserved castles in the world.

So we drove over and parked nearby, under sadly gloomy skies - but at least it wasn't raining! We wandered around the walls, very large and imposing! It's actually a double set of walls, one inside the other, with a total combined length of around 3km.

Inside the city it's exactly what you'd expect a medieval city to be like; very cramped, hemmed in and narrow. But very atmospheric as well, despite all the tourist shops. Basically every business was catering to tourists in some way, whether it was selling placemats or magnets or wooden knight toys.

Wandered around and enjoyed ourselves, picking out a few points of interest. Opted against going inside the castle since Schnitzel wasn't allowed in, and we'd heard reports that it wasn't super interesting inside anyway.

Had a sit-down lunch of cassoulet, a local speciality - a white bean stew with pork broth and a Toulouse sausage, very tasty! By mid afternoon we were finished filming, so retreated back to the hotel under still gloomy skies. At least we hadn't really been rained on!Read more