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| Buddy warning us that it looks like there’s a mad American behind us |
It was another late breakfast on
Saturday and we finally left the campsite in Trèbes to have a day in
Carcassonne at something approaching 1.00pm 😉 We parked by Mike & Aileen’s boat,
partly because there wasn’t a charge for parking there and partly so we could
give Buddy a bit of a walk into the old city or La Cité. Mike & Aileen
had already gone out as they were having lunch in La Cité but we had arranged to meet up for a drink later.
On our way up to La Cité we took
a short cut up the steep grassy banks which were teeming with butterflies. For once, there were a couple of clouded
yellows that kept resting but never long enough for us to get a good picture. We gave up in the end as it was getting
rather gruelling dashing up and down a steep slope in the 30 plus degree heat.
Part of the walls of La Cité have been adorned with concentric yellow
circles – apparently it is modern art and depicts the 20th
anniversary since UNESCO gave the citadel its listed status – no, I don’t understand
either 😒 (the
modern art, not the listed status)
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| The concentric circles are a little more obvious here (taken from theculturetrip.com) |
When we reached the top, we had our
picnic lunch under the shade of some trees and then ventured inside.
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| The main entrance |
It certainly was an impressive place
and, as expected, it was teeming with tourists.
As with any tourist trap in any part of the world the streets were full
of shops selling the same tourist tat that is sold in all tourist shops around
the world. There were also lots of
restaurants, and if you could find one in the shade I expect you could enjoy a
good meal if you were prepared to pay the tourist premium.
Saying all that, we still had to
marvel at the place, especially when we considered the enormity of the task of
building and extending it by hand during Roman and medieval times.
The city has two outer walls for
protection, and as there weren’t so many tourists there we walked around the
perimeter between them.
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| Less busy between the walls |
Later on, I looked at one of the
tourists guides for the Langedouc region and it put La Cité down in worse terms than I alluded to above. To be fair, their report finishes:
So should
you bother? Of course you should. You'll never get another chance to see
Medieval (and Roman) military architecture on this scale,
and the view of the castle from a distance, as well as of the modern city and
mountains from the citadel itself, is unforgettable. The trick is, like so many
of Languedoc's monuments, to visit Carcassonne in the right way.
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| An aerial view from the tourist site captures the scale of La Cité |
On our way back down to Carcassonne,
we met up with Mike & Aileen for goodbye drinks at a bar…
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| …and Aileen kindly took a picture of us without a mad American interfering |
The shopping streets in Carcassonne were
packed and we all agreed that we were thankful that none of us enjoyed shopping
– a joy of living on a boat is that you can’t keep going out and buying stuff
as, even if you wanted to do it, there is nowhere to put it.
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| Walking over L’Aude on the way back into the centre of Carcassonne |
We didn’t hang around on Sunday
morning and had packed up our gear and were leaving Trèbes by 9.30. The plan was to drive to the Camargue and
find a campsite near where the Rhône
empties into the Mediterranean. The idea
being to enjoy walks around the hundreds of salt lakes (étangs) and salt flats of the Rhône delta. We were headed for Marseillan which
was about halfway also looked to have some good beaches along the Med where we
could have a picnic and let Buddy have a run.
On our journey we left the Minervois
wine region and were soon heading through the Vin de Sable vineyards of the
Camargue. We saw plenty of flamingos as
expected, but no real wild white Camargue horses or black bulls 😊 Well, we
did see several farms with the horses in fields, but they were kept as tourist
attractions put on by the Camargue ‘cowboys’. We did wonder, as Vin de Sable is
generally rosé, whether there was an
etymological connection to the word flamingo, but I cannot find one.
We also passed over the canal du Midi
and a couple of other canals as well as the Petit Rhône and Grand Rhône – the Rhône splits into the two
major rivers as it forms the delta.
Marsellan itself was a quaint town with
a busy port but we carried on towards the signposted beach. When we arrived, we knew from the amount of
fast food stores and throngs of tourists that it wasn’t for us and turned
around to continue heading east. We
found a more isolated stretch of beach after a while but, as it is still the
summer season, dogs weren’t allowed on the beach but we stopped for a quick picnic
lunch anyway.
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| Interesting collection of snails on a fence post where we were having lunch |
Even though it was a cloudy day and
the sun didn’t really come out until late afternoon it was one of the hottest days of
our road trip so far and the temperature looks set to remain in the 30s for a
while yet.
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| Cloudy on the dog-free beach |
Even though dogs are allowed in many shops
and restaurants, the French don’t seem to want them on beaches. We had already been stymied by the fact that
only lap dogs are allowed on buses, so we had a search for dog friendly summer
season beaches and found very few along the south coast. We will change our rough plan and probably
stay inland as we head along the Côte d'Azur
towards Italy. I think I’ll refer to the
Côte d'Azur as the Riviera from now on as it’s easier to spell. Going along inland will be better for us as
the hills and woods along that stretch offer more in the way of walks and
butterflying.
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| Lifting bridge at Sète built in 1875 but currently closed for maintenance so we had to detour through the town |
We arrived at the campsite in Port de
Bouc and were decidedly unimpressed when we parked outside. It was three in the afternoon and it seemed
that everyone in the campsite were in a little amphitheatre and line dancing to
some awful live band. We couldn’t wait
to get away!
To be fair it was the first time that
we have arrived at a site and felt like that; the previous sites have all been fine. We carried on towards Istres and found a good
site just south east of it at a small place called Massane.
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| Tent pitched in peace and quiet on Sunday evening |
We were overlooking the Étang de Berre which is the last major lake
before Marseilles.
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| Our evening view towards Istres across the lake |
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| Our rough journey on Sunday |
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