Carcassonne
Do you ever get the impression when reading travel articles that everything is always splendid and unfolding tickety-boo? I can tell you from experience that there are often glitches along the way, and today seems to have been one of those days.
We had planned on going to Carcassonne to attend a concert as part of the festival "Les troubadours chantent l'art roman en Languedoc-Roussillon." What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than listening to ballads, poetry set to music. We knew the concert was in Carcassonne, but didn't have the specific address. When I tried looking it up on the morning of our departure, the computer server was down. No problem, we'd get the info at l'Office de Tourisme.
Did you know that the Office has moved? With all the narrow streets, one ways and periphery roads, it took us a while to find the place only to read on the door that it had moved, so off we went on a second search for the new location. Made it 10 minutes before closing! Got the address for the concert and decided we had plenty of time for lunch.
We sat at a restaurant right on that periphery road I mentioned and ordered a refreshment and a Caesar salad with chicken. An hour later, after breathing in exhaust fumes from the traffic and acrid smoke from the patrons next to us smoking very strong cigarettes, the waiter finally remembered that we had ordered food. We barely had time to gulp it down, but at least we moved to the inside of the restaurant where the air was better.
Off we went to rue Verdun to find the Joë Bousquet house where the concert was to be held.
We found the house, but the doors were locked and there was definitely no concert planned. Two other couples were there as well, caught in the same dilemma. We decided to head for the Medieval Cité.
Carcassonne is wonderful and we visited the Citadel back in 2009 with Diane and Richard, our travelling partners on that trip. Here's what it looked like back then: http://two-months-in-france.blogspot.fr/2009/10/carcassonne-24vi09.html
What better way to refresh our memories than with a little train ride around the Cité.
Then a walk through those ancient, cobblestone streets.
How sweet it is! We seem to always zero in on the food shops.
And the paper and book shops as well.
Today, even our photo is a little askew...
Meet Ahmed. He's 4 years old and "took our order" at the crêperie. He wrote down a few squiggles and posted it on the bulletin board while his Abba listened to the order from his kitchen and immediately started our Grand Marnier crêpes stuffed with bananas and covered with chocolate and whipped cream. The crêpes were delicious, but Ahmed was cuter.
We toured the Romanesque and Gothic Basilique St-Nazaire rather extensively, and this bell was particularly interesting, given the name of the town. (See posting from 2009.)
The bell with the beautiful stained glass medallion in the background.
The pulpit where sermons were delivered.
An early pump organ.
A trio from the Doros Choir
We may have missed the Troubadours, but this Trio is part of the Russian DOROS Choir. They were giving short and informal performances a few times every hour in the Carcassonne Cathedral to promote their CDs. Sublime! I bought a CD hoping to please our Russian friends, Luda & Iouri, when they next come around for a visit.
On our drive home, upon seeing these wind turbines, I couldn't help humming the Ian and Sylvia Tyson hit:
Four strong winds that blow lonely
Seven seas that run high
All these things that won't change
Come what may
Despite any little glitches that may have come our way, it's still a great day to be in France!
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