Carcassonne

The wind is whistling all around the stone corners tonight, gusting against the windows, crossing the room like a hurricane if I open them both. And yet somewhere, faintly, I hear a cricket. It blows hard often up here on the ridge of medieval Carcassonne. I learned today there are old drawings that show windmills on some of the towers long ago. Today there are electricity-generating windmills on the hills.

Carcassonne has been interesting, past the initial carrying the heavy bag again, groping my way through the narrow, winding streets trying make them align with the map until I found my chambre d’hôte phase. Which is pretty cute on the inside of the room, all in shades of yellow (I look at pieces of furniture, cabinets, and think of what it took to maneuver them up three floors of winding stairs). The landlady is pretty absentee, providing breakfast only in the sense of a fridge with butter and preserves, yogurt, milk and orange juice, and the ability to make a variety of coffees and teas. And some really horrible dessicated, Styrofoam-like “toasts.” That’s fine; I quickly shifted to saving a piece or two of my bread from a café meal, or today, buying a croissant at a boulangerie along with my sandwich, to have for breakfast. She clearly works very hard. She has a shop in a ground-floor room as well as the B&B. The building is medieval, on the Place du Grand Puits, the “great well.” (In another square not far away is another, (slightly) smaller well called, of course, “Le Petit Puits.”)

The wind was howling all the afternoon of yesterday, when I arrived, as well. Though I crossed the Canal du Midi right in front of the train station (I thought I’d taken a photo of a lock filling, but later it was nowhere to be found in my phone. The way the wind was buffeting me, I’m not too surprised), found a bus stop, and waited and waited, no bus #4 ever appeared. There was a posted timetable, but apparently it’s out of date or . . . So I recrossed the canal to the station, spoke with a curt woman at the Information window since there were no cabs waiting, who pointed to a posted sign with one cab company number. Which number resulted in being told there were no cars available. A few minutes later, trying to get guidance from one of the ticket clerks, though, I saw a cab pull up in the parking lot—not where taxis were actually supposed to wait, but whatever. I dashed out, and sure enough, he was looking for me.

Carcassonne, as Lonely Planet warns, is practically in danger of becoming a theme park. Vast hordes of tourists descend, by private car, by tour bus. The streets are almost impassable from late morning through the afternoon, and many of them are lined with junky souvenir crap. Its history in itself is the redeeming feature (and it being now somewhat past peak season). I was a little disappointed to learn how anachronistic Kate Mosse’s depiction of the city in her novel Labyrinth is: the city as we see it today largely came to be after the northern French had annihilated the Cathars, when Louis IX of France added greatly to the fortifications, even adding the second wall. But historically we’re still talking about fourteenth-century construction, and there are still a couple of Roman-era towers, too. It would seem the—I hesitate to call them inhabitants, because I think the actual inhabitants of the medieval city are very few (my landlady being one, obviously), most people living in the much larger lower town—don’t care. One restaurant I passed (more than once, in the circling and circling of streets) is called the “Table d’Alaïs.” 

I’d meant to get an earlier start this morning, before the full visitor onslaught, and while my nemesis the sun was still not high, but sleep broke through and flooded the accumulated deprivation. After concocting a little breakfast (one slice of hoarded bread, a cup of yogurt, orange juice and tea), I set out to accomplish my three morning tasks: walk around La Cité

outside the walls; retrace and memorize the route back to the Porte Narbonnaise; find again the most interesting little shop I’d passed at one point yesterday, that among much else has rings and various small devices that act as sundials. 

It’s impossible at the moment to make a full circuit of the walls, inside or out. Sooner or later, walking the ramparts or beneath the walls, you’re blocked by fenced-off construction and maintenance projects. The route to the gate is—of course—quite simple and quick, once you get your bearings and when you’re not maneuvering a heavy rolling bag. The shop took almost all day to rediscover, no matter how many times I circled. I was even beginning to question my memory: had I seen that place in Sarlat? No! I was sure not. I spotted it only on exiting the castle, late in the afternoon. None of the various types of rings really fit, or the one with a stone was sold out in September’s birthstone (referential only, obviously, these not being anywhere close to the price range of real sapphires), but I did come away with one that hangs on a cord as a necklace. Accuracy remains to be determined.

The excellent short film at the beginning of the castle tour, and the information panels throughout, did a lot to fill in the gaps in my knowledge and correct my misinformation. Ironically, an interesting-looking exhibition on the origins of the Cathars is due to open in Carcassonne the very day after I leave.

P.S. The same young guy arrived in a taxi Friday to return me to the station. The exact time I’d requested a pickup (the evening before!), had passed, and, after waiting a few more minutes, I’d called the company to be told he was on his way. Not that there was anything unpleasant in and of itself, waiting in the cool morning breeze across the street from the Narbonne Gate of Carcassone; just—for recent obvious reasons—taxi/station/train PTSD of a sort. He marveled that, out of fourteen drivers, such a coincidence would occur. He assumed I was German, because I don’t, according to him, pronounce my French “r” like an American or English person. I take that as a compliment. I think. Considering how rusty it all is in the first place. Then we talked a bit about Louisiana history, Chinese history (because he is so taken with the concept of 1,000 years—he’s actually underestimating—of history at Carcassonne. Those other two examples sort of put it in context). He mentioned Katrina. Sadly, he also asked which were the poorest and richest American states, and I had to respond honestly. (He immediately guessed Texas as one of the latter.)