Carcassonne, France

Well we made it through our third weekend here and our first road trip!  Yesterday it was soooo cold that we decided to stay here and run some errands in town and then chill.  Today we went to Carcassonne!  It was still super cold--we both wore our jackets and I broke out my boots but we had a great first trip! 

Saturday
Not much to report on yesterday--stayed in town and ran some errands and took care of some business.  :)

Sunday!
It was super cold and windy but we had a great trip out to the town of Carcassonne.  We left this morning a little after 8 am and headed southeast (east ish).  We drove on a toll road for the majority of the way and then had to navigate our way through town.  We were going to check out the castle/fortress that they are known for but there was also a market going on so we had to park a couple of streets away.  We enjoyed the extra walking time though because we didn't get to do much this week for exercise.  We ended up walking to the castle and spent a few hours looking around.  It was awesome! They also had a bunch of shops within the castle so we took our time and walked through most of those.  We stopped for lunch at a panini place and chowed down on a "Jambon and Fromage" panini which is ham and cheese-it was pretty good because it was nice and hot!  We took a ton of pictures and I will add a few of them under this post! After a few hours in the cold wind and once around the entire place we decided we were ready to head for home again so we did. I just finished uploading all the pictures and then I think it is nap time!  It is still cold and windy outside as well as cloudy so we will probably just hang out for the rest of the evening--we hope you all have a great weekend!! 

Cam in front of the Fortress in Carcassonne, France.

                                           Me in front of the Fortress in Carcassonne, France.

 Both of us in front of the castle--it's hard to take pictures of ourselves so we took turns--for the most part of our trip we will probably have individual pictures...

Cause I can...


                                     
 Cammy C!



                                     


We tried to take some to show you all how BIG this place is--this shows it pretty well! This is like a fourth of the place!

Same pic but me this time!

We hope you all have a great Sunday!

J

Notes from Cameron:

Just a couple side notes about the fortress for the nerds. It was a double walled fotress with everything needed to live for extended periods of time within it(I believe I read somewhere that it survived an entire war without being infiltrated) It was built on a hill side so one side it was a pretty good slope down, but the other side they had a dry mote, I would just consider it a kill area.  All of the vertical slits you can kinda see in some of the pictures are shooting positions.  They get wider as they go into the wall so the shooters can shoot different angles without being exposed.  I thought it was all pretty neat and kept thinking of the past uses of the place and what it would've been like to be a citizen of the fort.  The masonry was amazing, and they did a heck of a job because it still looks good and original today.  Not only did it appear to function very well but it also was very beautiful.  One thing that did make me kinda sad is the lack of appreciation for what it is.  There was trash all over.  I even saw a fresh diaper in one of the shooting slits, and grafiti on every informative sign.  Most of the time I don't really enjoy man-made sights as much, but this is one I wouldn't mind seeing again.  Hopefully next weekend we can make it to the mountains or beach!

Bye Bye Now.
Cameron