Carcassonne!!!

On Saturday, I went to Carcassonne!!! More specifically, the Cité de Carcassonne, which is a medieval walled city located on a hill within the larger city of Carcassonne. It's about a three hour train ride from Bordeaux, so we left early in the morning, and came back late at night the same day.

The entire walled city basically looks like a giant castle, like right out of a fairy tale! It's about a half hour walk through the city from the train station, so at first you don't see it (and aren't entirely sure where you're going if, for example, the office of tourism was closed and you have scribbled directions from Google but no map...), but then you walk across a bridge and, boom, there's a CASTLE in the distance!!

Even though it all looks castle-y, only one part of the cité is an actual castle. And we got to tour it for free with out student ID's!! France is awesome about letting students get into museums and monuments for free. The first part of the visit was a 10 minute video about the history of Carcassonne, which was hilariously over-dramatized, complete with pensive shadow figures and random overlays of scrolls. I have to admit, the whole walled city section is pretty tourist-y, and I think the castle has been heavily restored, but it still seems pretty authentic. And it just looks so cool!!!

After touring the castle, we walked around the rest of the walled city a little. There were some amazing candy/baked goods/sweets shops!!! It was very difficult to make the responsible choice of eating a sandwich for lunch instead of as many cookies as I could buy. There were even samples in some of the stores!!! There is nothing I love more than strangers handing out free candy.

Naturally, we also went to the requisite awesome church, the cathedral within the cité. So much pretty stained glass! Unfortunately, it's hard to photograph.

Later, we walked along the walls surrounding the city - also free with our student ID's! It was really windy and cold, but the sun was out, and the views were amazing! Seeing the city spread out behind the walls of the castle seemed almost unreal.

Afterwards, we left the walled part of Carcassonne, and walked around the rest of the city. We followed the suggested route that was on a map we finally did find. The rest of Carcassonne is not really as interesting or pretty as the castle part, but it was still very French, and a nice little town to walk around in.

On the train ride back, I tried so hard to stay awake and do some reading for school, but it was impossible. The trains are so smooth! I can't not fall asleep! Besides, I was pretty exhausted from sight-seeing all day, and we were going to Saint-Émilion the next day!! I will post about that trip soon...

À bientôt!