Carcassonne, France: Traveling to Carcassonne

Owen — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:15:37 +0000

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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France Tales » Carcassonne

Carcassonne, France: Traveling to Carcassonne

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