Carcassonne: a Castle Playground
Carcassonne is a French town in the Midi-Pyrénées region of France. It’s a 3 hour train ride from Marseille. This is my first time on a train (but not my last). And the whole process was made so easy by my Eurail Pass (thanks Mom and Dad!).
Carcassonne is divided into two towns—the Bastide Saint Louis and the Cité. Our Airbnb was located in the lower town, Bastide Saint Louis.
On the left is the Jacobins Gate, once part of the walled fortifications that surrounded the Bastide Saint Louis.
A specialty of the region is a dish called Cassoulet. It is made from Toulouse pork sausage and duck baked with white beans.
But what I really came for is in the Cité.
It should come as no surprise that my first weekend trip in France has taken me to a château.
In the evening, Sydney and I ate Cassoulet, a regional specialty made with Toulouse pork sausage and duck baked with white beans. On the way home, we bought a 2.5 Euro bottle of rosé and took it back to the Airbnb. Turns out, we rented the one house in France that doesn’t have wine glasses (or regular glasses)—so we drank it out of mugs!
Castle Time!
The next day, I spent hours in the Château Comtal and on the ramparts of the walled medieval city of Carcassonne.
The first wall was built in the 4th century by the Gallo-Romans in order to protect themselves from invaders. Remains of this wall and towers can be seen in the picture bottom left. The practice of using bricks to level the stones is characteristic of this time.
In the 12th century, the Trencavels lived in the château and Catharism and Catholicism existed side by side in the region. Cathars considered themselves Christians, but the Catholic church did not. They had some pretty opposite beliefs and the Catholic church was not going to tolerate them any longer. In 1209, the pope called for a crusade against the Cathars, called the Albigensian or Cathar Crusade. Carcassonne was one of the first victories of the Crusade.
Then, Carcassonne came under control of the king of France in 1226, who strengthened the citadel and built a second wall around the city.
The citadel was now a fortress. The entrance on the town side had two portcullises, a massive door, and a machicolation for dropping massive stones on enemies. The entrance to the château from the inside of the walls, constructed after the Crusade, sports a bridge over a deep ditch.
The hoarding is a wooden gallery on top of the ramparts for additional defense. Openings in the floor allow arrows to be fired down while the soldiers remain protected.
This is inside of the Aude Gate, which faces the river Aude. The double gates into a narrow courtyard were important for the defense of the castle because it required an enemy force to stand directly below the walls while trying to get through the gates. Additionally, it bottle-necked enemy forces so the castle defenders could pick them off in smaller numbers.
A huge barbican with enormous walls was also constructed as a way to get people to and from the river in the event of a siege. In the picture below, you can see the beginning of the walls leading down the hill. The rest of the barbican didn’t survive.
Many of the towers on the new, outer wall were built only in half circles so that if an enemy ever took the outer wall, they could not use the towers to launch their own attacks.
This photo is of the Aude Gate as you climb up the steep hill. The circles are remnants from an art installation from 2018 that made all the locals really mad.
And here is a man who reminded me of my father. Every time I tell my dad I want to go somewhere, he replies in the same way. Here are some examples.
Me: “Dad, I want to go to the Great Wall of China.”
Dad: “I want to bike the Great Wall of China.”
Me: “Dad, I want to go to Machu Picchu.”
Dad: “I want to bike to Machu Picchu.”
This man biked up the steep hill to the Aude Gate and then went all the way around the walls (at the base, not the top—there are to many stairs up there).
In 1659, when the Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed, Carcassonne lost it’s strategic importance as a border fort. The walls and castle that we see today were repaired in the 20th century and the shanty houses that had sprung up were removed. It is now one of the most visited monuments in France. I was glad I went during the offseason!
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