Postcard from a medieval fortress town

I had already bought my ticket to Carcassonne, a medieval walled city seven hours south of Paris by train, but a forecast of thunderstorms was threatening to ruin my trip.

On my train ride down on Thursday, though, the skies showed no signs of trouble. Farther and farther from Paris, the countryside, showing signs of autumn, glowed gently orange and yellow under the midday sun. And even though the sky was swathed in cotton balls, now and then I saw a patch of blue.

I was beginning to think I wasn’t going to get rained out after all. But my day with the walled city was on Friday, and there was still plenty of time for things to go south.

I found a hotel for the night after wandering the neat, perpendicular streets of Bastide St. Louis, Carcassonne’s less interesting half. (The city of Carcassonne is divided in halves by a river; one side is La Cité, the walled city. The other is Bastide St. Louis, a relatively normal town.)

The next day, I woke up to rain.

Wielding my umbrella, I began the 20-minute walk across the river to La Cité de Carcassonne, envisioning a day of soggy jeans and disappointing photos.

Then the sun broke through. In the distance, I could see the castle.

The fortress town has been through many hands since it was built, and it has been expanded and modified many times. But it was its 19th century restoration that carved its current romantic silhouette against the sky. It is still literally a city fortified by two circles of walls and 48 towers, topped by blue and red pointed roofs.

La Cité is all narrow, cobblestone streets and tiny shops. Unfortunately the place is extremely touristy so most of the shops sell only worthless souvenirs and trinkets.

I spent almost the whole day exploring the alleys and walking along the fortress’s outer walls and within its grassy moats. By midday, far from raining, it was getting almost too warm to be out in the sun.

Amazingly, some 60 to 70 people still live within the walls of the city. Down an isolated alley, I could hear the screams of schoolchildren at play behind a nondescript building. Cats frolicked in the grass and dozed in private corners.

At night, starving from all my exploring, I treated myself to a regional peasant dish, a stew made of pork sausage, butter beans, and a goose drumstick.

And then, exhausted and ready to head back, I left the restaurant for the train station. It was raining. I went back across the river, back to Bastide St. Louis, back to the train station. Back to Paris.

See more of my pictures from Carcassonne.