Carcassonne

1/4  Les Angles to Carcassonne

Unusual start. Ridiculously cold. Heater won’t even fire. Frozen pipes from cold night?  Only 3amps in campsite so can’t run electric heater or boil kettle.  Huddled around multiple cups of tea.  No exercise - URTI much worse .Influenza?Jeff starting with diarrhoeal a illness. Contaminated water from Banyoles? Buggar!!  Will we all get sick? How do we clean the tank? Kids OK though. Uuggh!

Slow dawdle to Carcassonne to see best preserved medieval castle in Europe and cycle along the Canal de Midi. Might just find a campsite with a toilet tonight.

Another winding mountain road deep into gorges side-gouged by man to enable passage of trucks (and Eddie), fast gushing creek below us, Jeff in a haze of nausea, fever and foggy headedness, stopped for pm tea beside the brook, heaps of French fly fishermen, onwards to the campsite as marked in our guide, splendid vision of the La Cite, the magnificent  well maintained fortress of Carcassonne, fields around all green with crops of lucerne (?) and grape vines sprouting new growth everywhere, into the campsite ....... and it’s closed till tomorrow!!  No worries, found another one up the road where Jeff wore a rutted track to the WC, doing best to stay hydrated, rotten egg burps, must be Giardia from the water at Banyoles.  The camp is actually an equestrian centre, good facilities, lots of birdlife and frog noises +++ over night, also a hooting owl on the hunt, Jen hacking cough all night, Jeff sweating.

another roundabout well decorated

2/4 woke next morning and Jeff all better!!!  Could it have been a bad dream?  No bad dream for Jen as the hack continues.

Schooled, emptied out the sewer tank (Jeff in gloves now), filled up the water tank and headed into Carcassonne where we did some pharmacy shopping, found a nice Canal side stop for lunch, parked at the “Aire,” unlashed the bikes and headed off to La Cite for a peak.  Rode around the walls enjoying the views over the new town, then parked/locked and set forth into the innards, narrow cobbled alleys (seen that a bit before!) with lots of shops aimed fair square at the tourist - food, clothes, postcards, Tshirts, plastic swords and shields, art/craft.  

a place to shoot people, with a bow

Up to the centre where all the frightened citizens would have hid in a siege and then round to the cathedral (nice one with piped Gregorian choir music and lots of great stained glass, nice haven from the tourist hunt), back out to the bikes and into the new city in search of the Canal Du Midi, only managed to find the River Aude which we rode along for a while.  Met a few lovely French people, so engaging and helpful and keen to chat and offer assistance, even with the language gap (actually Jen’s high school French is going remarkably well - such talent!), then with the sun setting we turned around and headed for Eddie, Jeff still feeling well, Jen feeling awful (3-4 days now) 

3/4  Carcassonne - happy anniversary Gren!

woke the troops at 7:30 (keen to get a park in close to the city), that’s early for us, drove from the aire down to a river side stop below the walls of La Cite where we had breakfast, kids did school, then we rode our bikes to the markets, got a French sim card (bye bye Lebara rubbish) and then biked along the Canal for a few kms marvelling at the engineering feat that produced this aesthetically pleasing tree lined stretch of navigable water and locks from the Med to the Atlantic, all built in 15 years, over 400 years ago!!

With the skies grey and the occasional drizzle we treadled back to Eddie and set forth via one mega supermarket, a fuel station (with gas outlet closed, that’s 4/4 now since in France, no worries, not desperate for gas yet) and then along the small roads close to the Canal (vineyards as far as you can see, all this effort for a product that is more harmful than good??), found a little gravel road just past a little stone bridge over the Canal and drove down to a flat spot beside the waterway to stay the night, still drizzling but cozy in Eddie, huddled up for a “Cassoulet”  (local dish with white beans, fat sausages, duck legs and a peppery salty sauce) and an installment of “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” and now Kel with sudden onset fevers and rigors and sore throat + cough.....ughhh!

night stop Canal du Midi

nice float hey Grumma?