Walled city in southern France. The first time I heard about him was during my first hitchhiking tour of Europe. At that time, I was only passing by, but I well remembered the large fortress, which was visible from afar. The driver who gave me a lift recommended that I come here at the next opportunity, and now, eight years later, this opportunity presented itself.
Jacob, an Englishman, responded to our open request in Couchsurfing. He warned that his apartment was still being renovated, but if that didn't scare us, he would be happy to host us. We, accustomed to spending the night in Spartan conditions, were not afraid of this, and the opportunity to communicate with a real Briton bribed us with the opportunity to improve English for both us and Leo.
Jacob is a programmer, entrepreneur, startup with an unusual destiny. All his childhood he traveled, sometimes with his grandmother, sometimes with his mother, and he graduated from primary school only. This did not prevent him from achieving great success in software development and web programming. Jacob continues to wander until now - he does not live anywhere for a long time, just like his mother. He came to Carcassonne from India, bought an apartment here in an old house in the very center of the city, but intends to sell it after renovation and move somewhere else.
Repair is, of course, a huge adventure, but Jacob treats it with irony and enthusiastically talks about all the discoveries he made during the repair work. For example, having demolished one of the partitions in the bathroom, he found behind it a bricked up old mirror on a load-bearing wall. In the previous and next photo you can see the green "doors". So, these are not doors, but huge shutters from the same huge windows overlooking one of the main streets, and therefore they should look decent and be painted strictly in one specific color. This threatens to cost the owner "a pretty penny." Well, or in Eurocentik.
A cool lamp made of vines and other interior elements.
We started our day in Carcassonne with a visit to the market, where local farmers present their products. This is where I first saw this sign.
Julia offered to try the artichokes, since neither she nor I had ever eaten them, and Jacob, without asking, immediately bought them ahead of us. And later he cooked them and showed them how to eat properly. It was quite an interesting experience. Julia did not try it, but Leo and I liked it.
We walk along Carcassonne in the direction of the fortress.
Carcassonne is divided into two parts - the old and the new city. Old ( Site) is located inside the fortress walls, the new one is everything that the fortress surrounds.
The weather at the end of March was so-so. No rain, but very cloudy and windy. Against the background of lead clouds, the gray walls of the fortress look quite gloomy. Images of a difficult medieval life filled with suffering and hardships arise in my head.
52 towers, ditches, three-kilometer walls in two rows... Today, the fortress of Carcassonne is a powerful fortification that still impresses with its grandeur.
There is a legend about the origin of the name of the city of Carcassonne (Carcassonne). The army of Charlemagne in the 9th century besieged the city, which belonged to the Moors, for several years. The food came to an end, only one pig and a sack of grain remained. The king died, and his wife, Lady Karkas, fed the pig with grain and threw it off the tower. Charlemagne decided that there was enough food in the city and lifted the siege. And the lady, delighted, began to beat the bells. "Carcas sonne!" ("The frame is ringing!") - the people exclaimed.
Walls, towers, fortifications are striking in their size - here only along the perimeter you can walk all day.
The walls offer stunning views of the lower city.
Pigeons lured by tourists use the unevenness of the wall to shelter from the wind.
Inside the fortress walls is a typical tourist attraction: endless souvenir shops, cafes, restaurants and hotels, but overall a pretty pleasant place to walk.
Our host Jacob is in one of the streets of the Cité.
By evening, the weather improved a bit and we even managed to photograph the fortress in the rays of the setting sun.
One of the most interesting places in Carcassonne, apart from the fortress, is an unusual house with a painted wall - a kind of augmented reality. Try to determine what is real here and what is drawn?
