Carcassonne in a day

After spending hours meticulously translating a French wikipedia article about the city of Carcassonne for one of my second year modules, I thought it was only fair that I got to visit it in the flesh during my year abroad. Luckily for me, it sits just just over an hour away from my new home in Toulouse. It would be rude not to.

So, myself and a few friends got a train to this pretty little city to see what it was all about. Here’s what we got up to…

Anyone who has heard of Carcassonne will most likely know that its main attraction is the huge medieval castle/citadel. So obviously this was the first place we headed. With towering turrets, winding walls and a view to die for, it’s safe to say that this was a pretty awesome monument.

Inside the walls of the citadel were cute little shops, cafes and the perhaps not-so-cute Musée de l’inquisition (medieval torture museum). This picturesque little journey to the castle was filled with all sorts of enticing foods, sweets and little trinkets!

The castle itself was not only ginormous, but pretty amazing. Walking along the walls and looking out of the huge windows, we got to see the amazing view of Carcassonne. Thankfully, we were once again lucky enough to have a day of October blue skies overlooking the city which made it all the more beautiful!

We also took some time to explore the town which has so many pretty little buildings, historic murals and cute little shops. Of course, we stopped off at a patisserie to get a snack…

There were lots of little shops selling soaps and bags of lavender, and I thought this display was just too cute not to photograph!

We spent our last couple of hours in Carcassonne dining in a restaurant that served THE best food. I had a duck pizza which was amazing. Bizarrely, the weather took a turn for the worse and so we spent our final moments sprinting through torrential rain, thunder and lightening to get to the train station…an eventful way to end the day.

So that was just a brief little post to show you what I got up to. Overall I had a fab time in Carcassonne! Out of the places I’ve visited so far, I would say it is one of the quieter cities, admittedly, we did find that by the end of the day we were running out of things to do. However I think it’s worth a visit even just to see the amazing castle and citadel!