Two Days in Carcassonne

Carcassonne had always been high on our list of places to visit in southern France, so when Angela said to me, “let’s go to Carcassonne on your birthday weekend,” I was all over it. Celebrating another trip around the sun while peering over the ramparts of a medieval city – yes please!

Our trip began in Montpellier, where we boarded our train at Gare St. Roch. It was a mid-morning train and we had gotten great deals on the seats, around 22 euros each in first class, return. The trip took about an hour and twenty minutes, a nice ride that stopped at Sête, Narbonne, and a few other spots before chugging in to Carcassonne.

Arriving at the station, we gathered our backpacks and headed in to town. It was a few degrees cooler than Montpellier, but very pleasant for mid-January, hovering between 8 and 10 degrees Celcius. We walked across a small bridge and into the city centre, making our way to our hotel. We both commented on what a pretty place it is, full of shops, restaurants, boulangeries, patiseries, and boutique hotels. About fifteen minutes after leaving the station we found our hotel, Les Chevaliers by Sowell.

The staff there greeted us pleasantly, Angela speaking French at a mile a minute with the guest services guy. I nodded and smiled a lot, which is my go-to move these days as we’re still early in our adventure here in southern France and my language skills are improving. My French comprehension is not horrible, but I’m still not confident when speaking. So I kind of float along, following conversations as best I can, and let Angela do the heavy lifting on the conversation front. She’s worked hard at her French and she’s good at it, so it’s fun for her to actually speak French in France with real French people.

While speaking French with the real French person behind the desk we learned that our room wouldn’t be ready for a few hours, so they stored our bags for us and sent us on our way. We weren’t unhappy about this as I was itching to see the walled city (also known as the Cité). It turned out we wouldn’t have to go far, as the views from the hotel are spectacular.

Having seen countless photos of Carcassonne, and after dreaming about visiting for years, the first view of the Cité was a big deal for us. There’s always this concern when you research something extensively that it might not live up to what was visualized. For me, that first view of the walled city exceeded my expectations.

Excited, we set out ready to explore. Being January, the trails and roads weren’t busy at all and we basically had all the space and time we wanted to take photos and check things out. On the one hand it lacked the energy that likely exists in summer. On the other hand, we didn’t have to deal with relentless hordes of tourists. I’ll take low season over high season any day.

We crossed the Aude River using the Pont Vieux, a stone pedestrain bridge built in the 14th century. It set the tone perfectly for the day to come.

The walk from the hotel to the gates of the Cité should take about fifteen minutes, but we enjoyed meandering through some of the little streets and alleys along the way. As in most French towns, there are plenty of cool little details to take in along the way. The difference with Carcassonne is that you get glimpses of the medieval city as you make your way through the streets. It also keeps you from getting lost, always a plus.

We wound our way upward, taking the scenic route towards the Porte Narbonnaise instead of the more direct and convenient route to the Porte de l’Aude.

We found it a bit hilly but it’s really not a long trek at all, and in the fresh winter air and sunshine it was a nice time to be out. Reaching the top we were rewarded with some stellar views, including our first look at the ramparts from the Porte Narbonnaise side of the city.

We entered through the gates and started to take it all in. Walking through the cobblestone streets, looking up at the massive stones that comprise the walls, is humbling. I couldn’t help but think about the thousands of man hours and the engineering challenges involved in building something like this hundreds of years ago, ages before electricty, engines, cranes, and tractors.

As for when the Cité was built, it’s kind of a tricky question to answer. The area where the Cité exists was settled in the 400s, with the inner rampart built sometime around 485. Over the centuries different occupiers and rulers made additions and modifications to the walled city. So it depends on which part of the city you’re talking about when it comes down to determining when it was built. The Porte Narbonnaise seen above was started during Louis the IX’s reign, so we’re talking about the 13th century.

In the 17th century the Cité started to fall into disrepair as it was no longer used as a frontier fortress. In 1849 the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was tasked with restoring much of it. It stands now much as it did after his restoration. So some of what you’ll see, should you choose to visit, will be original walls and other aspects built more than 1500 years ago, and some of what you’ll see will be restorations created in the 19th century. Either way, it’s pretty awe-inspiring to experience.

The small streets, tight corners and touristy signs make you feel like you’re on a movie set, but then you check yourself and realize this isn’t a movie set. We wandered in and out of shops but for the most part we were too busy checking out this fantastic medieval fortress to care much about shopping. At times it felt like we were walking through France in the Middle Ages, other times it felt like Victorian England.

After exploring for a couple of hours we were well past hungry and it was getting dark so we headed back to the hotel. We checked into our room and enjoyed basking in the view of views:

This is another reason to travel in the off-season – you can get rooms with views like this for a reasonable price. 🙂 This was taken off our balcony, where I would spend more time than I care to admit taking pictures as the sun set, as it rose the next morning, and pretty much every time I had a spare ten seconds. If you’re going to Carcassonne do whatever you have to do to snag a room with a view like this – trust me, it’s worth it.

We went out into the city to find a great restaurant for a birthday meal. It’s a neat city, but in January there aren’t a heck of a lot of options that were both open and looked super appealing to us, so after walking around for a while we wound up at the hotel right next to ours, a newly renovated property called Tribe. They have a bar and restaurant on the top floor with nice views of the Cité. We ordered tapas (which were delicious), and toasted another year on this planet for me, which I am grateful for. We packed it in around eleven and headed back to Les Chevaliers.

Day Two

We both woke up at the crack of dawn, which isn’t as impressive (or stupid) as it sounds, as the sun rises in Carcassone around 7:30 am in January. This allowed me to try taking a wide variety of sunrise pics (I’ll spare you by not sharing the 47 slightly different versions of the same pic that I have).

We had breakfast, an excellent spread in the hotel restaurant that came as part of our room rate. They had everything you could want in a French breakfast, impressing us with both the diversity of choice and the friendliness of the servers.

Fuelled up and ready to go, we decided to attack the Cité once more, this time via the Porte de l’Aude.

Approaching the Cité from the river side provides a different look altogether. It feels a bit more epic as you can feel the size and enormity of the walls as you approach from below.

The gates themsleves are pretty impressive, and as you walk up the cobblestones (which are pretty uneven – not a place for high heels or stilts in case you feel tempted to bring either) it’s easy to imagine how intimidating it must have been to approach from below.

We made our way back into the center of the Cité. As it was a Sunday morning the place was almost empty, so we had it pretty much to ourselves, an experience I am sure few travelers ever get to enjoy. It was cold, only about 3 degrees to start the day, so we moved quickly to keep ourselves warm.

This time we did venture into more of the shops, and although many of them are touristy, they’re also fun. The merchandising in some of the candy shops is brilliant, and while the prices aren’t easy on the wallet in these places the displays are next level. Candy shop #1…

…and candy shop #2. If you’re looking for sugar to power you up and down the hills of Carcassonne, you’ll be well covered.

Throughout the walled city there are restaurants, pubs, statues, cathedrals, and more than enough to keep most people engaged. After a couple of hours looking at candy and having discussions with statues who rarely disagreed with us, it was time for lunch. An informal survey of the restaurants told us that about half or more of them were closed due to the low season, so we opted for one that was open. Cue Les Copains d’Abord.

When we entered, the restaurant was almost empty – only one other couple sitting at a table on the other side of the restaurant. The host greeted us warmly as we came in and he told us about the specials. We sat down, ordered after a few minutes, and watched as the place steadily fiilled up. Within twenty minutes the restaurant was full. We had just beaten the rush.

I had an excellent plate of a salad with some local sausage and Angela had a chicken dish. On a cold day it hit the spot beautifully, and we were soon (well, not that soon – this is France where no meals are rushed!) on our way again.

We only had another hour or so to explore, so we did one last lap around and took in the sights. There are parallels to be drawn with Mont Saint Michel (or MSM), another walled city we visited a few years ago. Like MSM, the Cité at Carcassonne has the cobblestone streets, touristy shops and pubs, tight streets and alleyways, spectacular views. To us, though, Carcassonne feels bigger than MSM – the scale of it is just massive, and it has a board game named after it, an accolade that I am sure drives the marketing people at MSM nuts.

One of the things we always try to remind ourselves to do is to look away from the main attraction and see what else is around that might motivate, inspire, or provide a unique experience. In this case, while the views of the Cité are always a crowd favourite, it turns out the views from the Cité aren’t too shabby, either.

Our time done, we hiked back down to the hotel, grabbed our things and checked out. We made the twenty minute walk to the Gare de Carcassonne, enjoying the sunny (if somewhat fresh) weather. Two days in Carcassonne had been everything we had hoped it would be, and we will be back!

Carcassonne Facts:

• Carcassonne is located in southwest France, in the département of Aude, in the region of Occitanie. It is southeast of Toulouse, and 775 kms south of Paris, or roughly seven and half hours by car via the A20.
• Carcassonne, like Toulouse, enjoys calling the pain au chocolat a “chocolatine”. They’re proud of it, which is fine. I don’t care what the locals call it, we just call it delicious.
• Eugène Viollet-le-Duc’s restoration has been lauded as a major achievement, and a work of brilliance, but not everyone was thrilled. He failed to strictly follow the building styles of the region when reconstructing the roofs, rebuilding them more in the style of the north (he was from Normandy, so it’s what he knew and was partial to) with large slopes instead of the flatter, terra cotta style more common in the southwest.
• Carcassonne is one of southern France’s most-visited locations, with between 3-4 million visitors per year (depending on where you go for your stats).

Thanks for reading! Have you been to Carcassonne? If so, what were your impressions? Comment below – cheers!