Day Ten

France: Carcassonne

14th July 2008 – Bastille Day

A bank holiday in France and we where treated with a cloudless blue sky as left our drive away awning at the campsite in Alet le Bain and headed off for the day to discover the medieval city of Carcasonne. We where hoping to be able to watch the biggest firework display outside of Paris. On route we stopped for photos in fields of sunflowers and I sneakily borrowed one (well ok nicked one) and popped into a cut off evian bottle to brighten up Priscilla.

On arrival into Carcassonne we headed straight to the medieval walled city and managed to bag one of the last remaining camper spots on a grassy verge shaded by plain trees, right by the river Aude with a view of the medieval city. It was cool, loads of French camper cars all lined up creating a little village all of our own and our first ‘boondocking’ (for the uninitiated that’s Australian for camping for free!) experience.

We where next to a friendly half German half French couple with two young toddlers. Happy with the spot we where soon strolling off into the cobbled route to the picture perfect walled city, loads of photo op’s, it was going to be a snap happy day.

Carcassonne was looking stunning and and was much larger than I had imagined. We wandered around soaking up the festival atmosphere and getting our bearings stumbled on a cute little restaurant with a secret sunny garden for lunch. I had Foi gras, steak enfant and frites followed by chilled pineapple and mint soup and lemon sorbet, all washed down by a bottle of house wine from the restaurant owners own vineyard, very tasty.

All set for more sight seeing we entered the main inner gate building to commence our trip along the inner ramparts and through into the main chateau. As we qued for tickets everyone was handed Bastile day ribbons. We didn’t realise it but we where one of the last people allowed up onto the ramparts as they were to be closed to the public from 3pm to allow for the final preparations for the fireworks, to be launched from the outer ramparts.

A beautifully clear day the view of the new town of Carcassonne and the hills and mountains surrounding was stunning. You could see why it made a great garrison spot to keep the Catalunyans at bay. Security was very tight with people patrolling up and down the ramparts with walkie talkies looking terribly serious. As we looked down and through the walls we could see why, with massive vats of explosives just below us we could be seconds away from death!

The ramparts lead us through into the inner courtyard of the chateau and within the great hall we watched a multi media presentation giving us a flavour of the history of the city, its subsequent decline and more recent preservation, now a Unesco protected site. Next we visited the cathedral with its stunning stained glass windows and our feet were tiring so we descended back down the hill back to Pricilla for a power nap.

As the evening drew on people were already beginning to take spots for the evenings fireworks on the road by the river, so we freshened up, packed some bottles of wine and sandwiches and headed out. The medieval pedestrian bridge linking old Carcassonne with new Carcassonne has been closed, and the new road bridge had een closed to traffic which by the time we arrived at around 19:45 was already packed with people, sat down waiting for the fireworks.

With insider knowledge courtesy of the tourist info office we headed through the throngs of people down on to the east bank of the river to a grassy verge (again absolutely packed with people) and threw our rug down and cracked open some wine and waited for the night to close in and the fireworks to commence.

There was such a great party atmosphere on the river bank, with some French chaps teaching children at the side of us how to juggle and people cheering as brave souls waded through the river to a grassy island for a prime view of the imminent fireworks. With our mp3 players treating us to our favourite sounds and the wine flowing, Johnathon was soon catching everyone’s attention as he did a crazy sit down dance thing to his music! Intrigued by what was making Johnathon move we got chatting to a French trio behind us. Caroline and Antionne, the more confident of the 3, seemed some what disappointed to find out it was Madonna! Never the less we had a fun time finding out about each other in half French half English as the sun set. As we headed beyond 22:00 darkness had crept in and dramatically all the new towns street lighting was cut off and old city’s was lunged into darkness then blasted into illumination as the first barrage of fireworks exploded throough the air.

The waiting had been well worth it, we were treated to a 45 minute crescendo of fireworks, blasting their way above the walled city, a stunning back drop for a truly amazing firework display. We rounded the evening off, back at the side of Priscilla, throwing some sausages onto our gas bbq and knocking back some beers.