Carcassonne is a pristine medieval town located about 45 minutes south of Toulouse. Traveling to Carcassonne is a very easy day trip if you are coming from the Toulouse area. You can take the train or you can drive to Carcassonne. It is best to avoid traveling to Carcassonne during the summer months as it is quite packed with tourists and the narrow medieval streets will be sure to give you a sense of claustrophobia. Read the article and at the end you’ll discover a photo slideshow.
Carcassonne is divided into 2 parts, yes this is a simplification but still somewhat accurate, La Cité and La Bastide St. Louis. La Bastide St Louis is the more conventional downtown part of Carcassonne, although it is very old and has a maze of medieval streets too. La Cité is the walled in fortress.
La Bastide St Louis is situated on the left bank of the River Aude. It was built in 1260 in a checkerboard layout. Here you will find restaurants, cafes, shops, boutiques, and other stores. This part is within the city walls of Carcassonne and has a variety of architectural styles. The city was rebuilt numerous times so if you have an eye for architectural details you can discern during which periods it was rebuilt by the architecture alone. There is also a beautiful Fine Arts Museum and Public Library that are worth seeing. The original city wall has also been rebuilt but some of the original wall remains. The city wall seems more of a suggestion not to enter, it is not really imposing enough to keep intruders out.
La Cité, as in Cité Medieval, lies on the right bank of the River Aude. Work began on this site in the early 1120′s. This is a magnificent example of a medieval walled in fortress. It is featured on UNESCO’s World Heritage list. It has 52 towers, 2 rings of town walls, and 3 km of battlements. It quite simply looks like a fairy tale version of a medieval castle. There is no restriction on access to this part of Carcassonne so you can walk along the footpaths and climb the steps of this immense structure. There are shops and restaurants located inside this set of walls and even approximately 120 people live within these walls. When people travel to Carcassonne, this is what they are expecting to see.
There are so many stories and histories to tell one doesn’t know where to begin. Originally this was Roman territory. La Cité is actually built over an old Roman fortress. In the 13th century this was the stage for the Crusades against the heretics, Les Cathars. It is interesting to note that it was a very diverse city then and many religious groups lived together peacefully, I guess that’s why the Catholic Church wanted to put an end to it.
There are plenty of references to a variety of medieval torture chambers and devices. You can even visit a museum dedicated to the torture devices. With the recent news about the CIA’s continued use of water boarding I can say that we happily skipped the entire torture garden.
There seems to be a wide variety of things to do for everyone. Here are a few links to discover more tips for traveling to Carcassonne. A gallery of photos tells a better story than words, view it below.
http://www.carcassonne-tourisme.com/Carcassonne2.nsf/vuetitre/docpgeintrovisiter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcassonne
Go to Carcassonne, it is unbelievable.
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Carcassone is indeed a kind of magical place, especially if you’ve never been to a real castle. We took the train from Toulouse, which in itself was an interesting journey. We met two Suisse women on the train to whom Robb spoke in German. The only thing I understood was that they were going to Avignon. Another thing was that once you get off the train, there are no directions (well, none that we saw) to the citadel. And you can’t see it from the train station, or from inside the town. That is unless you walk to the end of the main street, where just outside the wall there is a plan-de-ville. BTW – great pictures.
The day was beautiful so the pictures were easy to take. The sky was a pristine blue, which makes a nice backdrop for any photo.
So if we were giving advice we would say that you should have your route planned in advance so when you got off the train you knew where to go. (I say this because I also submitted this post to a travel site that would like to hear insider tips like this).
When you drive it is pretty obvious but from the train I could imagine that it is not.
I agree that would be my advice if the castle is the only thing in which you’re interested. Not knowing in which direction to go was annoying at first, but then we realized that we saw a lot more of the town then if we had just headed straight to La Cité. Just across from the train station is a small marina where I understand you can take a boat tour on the Canal du Midi. A couple blocks further from the Gare de Carcassonne is a very nice little square with several small cafés surrounding a large fountain. For those who would rather, there are taxis for the trip to La Cité. It is a bit of a long trek, but easily worth the effort. There is a hotel in the walled cité. Robb’s parents stayed there and rated it highly.
I hope that you packed my gay-friendly guide to Carcassonne in your back pocket (no bandana jokes) before going.
http://cyberfrance.blogspot.com/2006/06/carcassonne-gay-friendly-and-branch.html
The link appears to be borken to your guide. Do you still have it. Thanks
Which guide re you referring to? Maybe you mean Lost in France’s gay guide? If so, he no longer does his blog so it is unavailable, sorry. If you mean something else, let me know and I will try to locate it.
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