Day 52 Carcasonne

What a fabulous day! The weather was just perfect - a clear blue sky and just 18-19° to start as we walked from our hotel across the Pont Vieux over the l'Aude river toward the old citadel on the hill. We walked up and around to the far side to the Porte Narbonnaise in order to see this gate in sunlight.

Happily we were able to snap pictures to our heart's content. It is a very picturesque and compact town on the world heritage register. There are three main attractions - the castle, the ramparts and the old cathedral. You pay just €8.50 to see all this - the best money we've spent in quite a while. The cathedral is free and has excellent stained gkass windiws. The castle, like most of the ramparts has been reconstructed but it looks great. The views from the ramparts over the town and the surrounding countryside are superb. We were pleased to see more snow-covered mountains in the distance - the Pyrenees. We were lucky that it was such a clear day in order for this to be possible.

Much of the interior of the cité is given over to cafés, restaurants and tourist shops, but that is to be expected.

There were not that many people, which was a pleasant surprise. We walked back at about 3pm and after a short visit to the hotel we boarded a boat for tour on the Canal du Midi, built by a local tax collector in the late 18th century. It is 210 Km long and was completed in only 14 years. Our tour guide was a charming young woman (who also doubled as a deck hand when we navigated through two sets of locks) diplomatically neglected to mention in the English version of the story (unlike the French version) that the reason for the coastal route being high cost was the taxes imposed on shipping by the British at Gibraltar.

We used up another of our lives on this trip - part way through the old woman behind me prodded me and pushed a phone in my direction. Was it mine, she gesticulated? Yikes! Yes it was - it had fallen out of my Velcro-ed pocket during my frequent squirming around to take pictures. It could so easily have slipped off the deck over the side - I don't understand why it didn't. So yet again it was a helpful Spanish person who saved me!