Author: admin

This is a bit sub-optimal, I’m off on another trip this weekend and I haven’t quite gotten around to finishing writing up the last riveting trip for my two loyal blog readers. Best I start to tackle that issue…. I thought a healthy breakfast would be in order, so Liam set off navigating us to Au Péché Mignon. There was the usual sub-optimal “we’ll be there in three minutes” when we were evidently 28 minutes away, but I didn’t say anything as I’m good like that.

It was the nearest that we could find to Greggs and my first impressions were positive.

It was Liam’s turn to order and he had to navigate that I wanted a selection of random items. The service was friendly and there were some locals characters in the bakery, it felt a little bit like a Wetherspoons. It made us wonder where Wetherspoons customers would go if there was no Wetherspoons. One of the more important questions of our age some might say.

The coffee and food was suitably delicious, the apple turnover went well with the coffee.

I got the last lemon meringue tart, perhaps made with slightly artificial ingredients, but I’m not picky. It was all keenly priced and there were a multitude of deals available for those who had the energy and enthusiasm to work them out. We then left to go marching out into the rain of Carcassonne, knowing that we had quite a walk back to the airport.

After the meal when I feeling rather more plump than I considered entirely optimal, I had started to take some photos of the town at night, but they didn’t feel sufficiently exciting so we thought that we’d return to the hotel.

A photo of the city before we left. Half-way back, we noticed that they’d turned the lights on to illuminate the whole castle, so we thought we’d traipse back to have a look.

We walked down to the bridge, but I thought it’d be a better idea to get some photos somewhat nearer.

Liam seemed excited by this as he wanted to climb a hill , but I’m less excited by such concerns.

We found a path that took us nearer to the castle.

I tried to be artistic, whilst recognising the limitations of my photographic skills.

My two loyal readers must be riveted at these photos, which are quite similar and taken near to each other.

I took a photo of my shadow. I should probably get out more.

We thought that we’d walk around the castle.

We stopped when I realised that the path got a bit too steep and I might fall off it.

I was pleased that we noticed the lights had been turned on, it truly added to the ambience of the whole arrangement.

Safely back at the hotel and Liam worked the vending machine for me so that I could blame him if my Orangina didn’t dispense.

I’m quite review driven when selecting restaurants and this location was highly reviewed and looked like it had some character to it. We had meandered in a little earlier to reserve a table and although the downstairs area is small, there is a larger dining room upstairs and that’s where we were seated.

I like a bit of rustic and the stone building did have a considerable charm to it without feeling formulaic.

The room that we were seated in. We’d obviously decided what we wanted quickly and didn’t need to faff about and fortunately the staff recognised that so we weren’t left waiting for very long. The restaurant has a permanent pizza menu and they always have cassoulet, but everything else changes daily and is specials driven.

The starter of the goat’s cheese whilst Liam went for a French onion soup. I had no idea whether the cheese would be served hot or cold, but it was the former and I could take that gamble as it’s an agreeable cheese to me either way. I have this odd thing that I don’t like melted cheddar, particularly the smell. This is why pizzas should never be made with a cheddar and mozzarella mix, but I digress somewhere here. The cheese was mild and creamy, whilst the salad was, well, salady. Unsure of protocol, we risked getting more water and bread, not knowing whether it would be charged for later on, but it wasn’t. One slight oddity is that we had to reuse the cutlery for the starters and main courses, which didn’t seem entirely usual, especially when they were plonked back on the table.

Cassoulet, with Liam’s traditional local dish of pizza in the background. The Cassoulet consisted of white beans, pork sausage and duck, and it much thicker than I had anticipated, making it filling and especially so when I kept getting more bread delivered to the table so it all transpired to be more substantial that I had expected. The meat was tender and the duck fell off the bone, with the duck skin being perfectly crisp. This is very much a French comfort meal, in the way that Maltesers are one of my comfort meals, and it’s one of the restaurant’s signature dishes. I would add here, for reasons of precision, that I’m now comparing Maltesers to a restaurant cooked Cassoulet. Well, I don’t think I am.

I was also impressed at the craft beer selection, they had numerous different options from FADA and they were suitably interesting, the Blonde was clean tasting with slight fruit notes, whilst the Sunny IPA was hoppy and light. I’m not sure how many French restaurants are moving towards making an effort to embrace craft beer, but I hope that the number steadily increases to move away from the expectation that customers will want to order wine.

The service was attentive and friendly, with the prices being moderate and I was pleased that there were no additional charges added at the end. The staff spoke English, which was very useful for Liam and I, and it felt like a traditional French meal in the heart of the historic walled city of Carcassone. I think that reservations are going to be useful here, perhaps even essential, as it seemed a popular destination for locals and visitors to the city. All really rather lovely.

Next on our little saunter around Carcassonne was a visit to the Basilica of Saints Nazarius and Celsus and there’s been a religious building on this site since the sixth century. Mostly built between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, it was the town’s main cathedral until 1803 and it’s an impressive building. For a period in the eighth century, this area of France was under Muslim occupation although no-one is quite sure what happened to the cathedral at that stage and there’s nothing left of the original building. It was all a little sub-optimal in 1209 during the Siege of Carcassonne as the authorities needed to pinch some of the cathedral’s stone to repair some of the damaged ramparts. But it was repaired and there were numerous expansions over the following centuries. The walled city had started to depopulate and fall apart a bit by the end of the eighteenth century, with the dormitory, refectory and kitchens for the monks being demolished in 1792. The move to make the Saint-Michel church the new cathedral took place in 1803, but the resurgence in tourism to the area recently has ensured that this former cathedral is still well visited.

With its origins going back to the seventeenth century, the organ was enlarged between 1772 and 1775, being made an historic monument in its own right in 1970. By that time it was in poor condition and it was restored between 1982 and 1985.

The pulpit.

The choir and apse is the oldest part of the building with its impressive stained glass.

More stained glass. I obviously haven’t got a clue what is what here, but some of this stained glass is from the fourteenth century, which seems to be a remarkable survival to me. I’m not a student of architecture (or indeed arguably anything), but it all feels well balanced and proportioned, the medieval architects have inserted a lot of glass here with some degree of expertise.

One of the rosettes on the arm of the transept. This basilica does have the challenge that it’s such a visited tourist attraction that its use as a religious building is compromised to a degree, it’d be hard to take part in a confession with the 36 tourists walking by and it’s hard to find any quiet areas. Although, on the flip side, there’s the opportunity to get money from excited and delighted visitors to the building. I had a little look at the reviews and that challenge is evident:

“Very beautiful place of worship but a shame that it has fallen into the hands of mass tourism which does not respect the silence within a sacred place.”

And when it’s used as a religious building, there’s feedback about that in the form of 1 star reviews….

“We would have loved to visit it, but unfortunately there was a wedding.”

And:

“Thrown out of the church because rich people decide to get married at the beginning of August in the church.”

Anyway, that’s probably enough about the basilica as it was then time for us to focus on our dining requirements for the evening.

Right, I’m ready to start catching up on this trip now, avoiding it being one of those projects that I never quite get around to finishing…..

After crossing back over the River Aude we thought we’d pop and scout out some evening food options. Whilst in the planning stage for that, Liam discovered this rather pleasant little cafe which is located in the Citadel and I was bemused to see how badly a few of the food options were reviewed, some tourists traps that give the appearance of taking advantage of visitors. This location wasn’t one of those, it was laid-back and informal, with Liam working out that customers needed to order at the counter. He went with his crepes, whilst I went with my healthy Orangina, which is what I consider to be the national drink of France as opposed to wine. The prices were towards the lower end of the scale and it’s just a little away from the busier areas, so all rather lovely.

The rather beautiful River Aude. The bridge is Le Pont Vieux which is one of the few medieval bridges remaining in France, although it was restored during the nineteenth century. It’s a pedestrian only bridge now as a newer road bridge has been constructed a little further down the river.

Liam on the river crossing. The blog title of crossing the River Aude perhaps sounds more exotic than the reality….

The fast flowing river.

The Romans called the river Atax, it later became the Aude and it’s 225 kilometres long flowing from the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean Sea near to Narbonne.

Located by the River Aude is this small chapel which was first constructed in 1497, near to the city’s hospital. It was extended in the sixteenth century but during the French Revolution it was sold off and became a residential property. The church was able to buy it back in the middle of the nineteenth century and restore it back to being a church.

My photo of the interior is rather blurry unfortunately, but it gives the general impression. Nothing survives of the pre French Revolution interior, but the Madonna with Child statue at the altar is from the period just after it became a church again in the nineteenth century.

The church is also one of the starting points for the Camino de Santiago.

Bastide St. Louis is the planned settlement which is separate from the castle and is located on the other side of the River Aude. We had thought that it might be a good place to get lunch, but on the Sunday that we visited, most things were closed and some of the cafes that were open had appalling reviews. It was also surprising just how quiet the whole area was, the streets were mostly empty.

The main square was not a beating heart of excitement. It was laid out in the thirteenth century and it is in approximately the centre of the town, with the information board saying that it’s a “lively place”, although that felt a little aspirational. It was originally known as the Place Royale, but that was seen as sub-optimal after the French Revolution and it was renamed Place Liberte. Napoleon changed it to Place Imperiale and with the restoration it went back to Place Royale. The sign-writers were likely excited by this constant updating of the branding, especially when in 1852 it became the Place aux Herbes and then in 1894 it took its current name, Place Carnot. This was to honour the President Sadi Carnot, who was assassinated in the same year.

Only around a third of the restaurants and cafes were open, with nothing looking overly inviting.

We noticed that a Carrefour was open and we were fortunate as it closed a few minutes after we had left. Here are my authentic French delights, a rather healthy lunch I thought. Well, sort of. We did though agree that we’d better go back to the castle to get our evening meal.

Another one of the interesting exhibits in the museum, this is a sixteenth century baptismal font from the Grés region of France, which is to the north east of Carcassonne. I don’t have much to write about this (not least as there’s not much information on the display panel), but I’m intrigued at how much damage was done to churches in the country during the French Revolution and how so many church treasures were displaced from their former home. It was a brutal destruction, nearly every one of the 30,000 churches in France had been forced to close by 1794. Which makes items such as these so interesting (well, to me, and I’m setting the bar low here) as they were so important to people when in churches, found themselves fortunate to survive into the nineteenth century and in the case of this one, is now likely seen by more people in this museum than when it was in a church. Anyway, I digress, I just liked this survival….. I must get back into blogging about food, but more on that shortly.

This statue is in the museum at Carcassonne and dates to the fourteenth century, likely from Sienna in Italy. I’m intrigued by items such as this as they would have had enormous emotional and religious relevance to people several hundred years ago and it’s also a particularly attractively designed statue. I don’t have much else of great note to write about this, it just intrigued me and so it deserves a place on this blog to excite and delight my two loyal readers. I didn’t know this until I read it on the information panel for the statue, but the dove in the infant’s hand represents the Holy Spirit.