Carcassonne

Added: June 27, 2009

We were looking forward to our trip to Carcassonne, France since January or beginning of February when we booked our flight tickets. Our decision to go there was slightly different from our typical process we usually use: "Let's find some place where we can fly for a weekend cheaply".

This time we knew that we need to see Carcassonne. We knew it is beautiful castle and medieval city surrounded by walls. But that would not be enough. Our decision to go there was related to our passion to play board games (of German type). And Carcassonne was the first game I have played (I do not like it as much any more, there are so many better games out there now). Of course it helped that Ryan Air is flying there from London.

Additional pages are available:

In the Cité Mediévale
Atmosphere of Carcassonne

In the Cité Mediévale

Our flight arrived at the noon (Saturday) so we hurried to Cité to see everything before it will be closed. There will be plenty of time to see surroundings later. We even postponed going into hostel and kept our backpacks with us. At least they were not heavy.

During whole flight we were looking on this layer of clouds bellow us and as we were landing we passed through heavy rain. But instead of terrible grey sky we got nice blue one with photogenic clouds. Nice surprise to weather forecast I have been watching for last several days :-)

The Castle

As I said Carcassonne is (small) walled city with the Castle inside (more walls). The castle was our first stop and ignoring the fact we needed to pass through city I am going to show photos of castle first.

This is main gate to castle. By passing through it you are not there yet as it is leading only to small area (I forgot the name).
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You still need to pass bridge before you get to real gate. But we are close.
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Well, these photos are from outer wall, but they look like the part of the castle, so I put them here.
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And again - some from outside of the outer wall. The same excuse applies :-)
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Standing on the outer wall, looking at the castle and waiting till sun peeks through clouds. It took about 10 minutes and I am happy with the result.
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This is the last photo I have taken on Sunday as we explored surroundings shortly before going to the airport. We were aware of this vantage point from postcards and we are glad we found it during nice light conditions. You can click here for bigger version.
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The city

These are pictures from around the the city (inside of outer walls).

One of the reasons we did not hurry to our hostel after arrival was that it was located about 100m from gate to the castle. It is at really convenient location. Even closer to main attraction than in Jaisalmer :-)

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