Day 65: Pouzols to Carcasonne

September 21, 2013

Usually of you are going to lie in your tent worrying about the weather, it's because you are listening to rain on the roof. But last night it was not rain but wind I was listening to. What kind of stupid (head)wind blows all day and all night?

Dodie is still weak, but we headed off gamely. The countryside is very attractive, with very gently rolling hills and normally vineyards on all sides, featuring very blue grapes. The roads themselves, viewed in a photo, seem very fetching and pleasantly ridable. This is deceptive, though. Photos do not show the headwind, which really sucks the fun, plus the potential for getting anywhere, out of cycling.

Next, there is just enough traffic to be wearing. There is usually little or no shoulder, but the French drivers are good about leaving enough clearance when passing. Whatthey will not do, however, is slow down. So they either just whiz past you, or if there is an oncoming car, pull over, whiz past, and careen back into the lane, averting a head on collision by nanoseconds.

Our target for the day was Carcasonne, seriously pathetic at under 50km, but given the wind, actually a fair challenge. If you can just barely make 5 kph, 50km is 10 hours!

We passed two or three villages on the way, and were surprised to find that the usual narrow street stone house slightly decayed charm had here descended into much decayed depression. We have no explanation for this, because the surrounding fields are full of lovely looking vines and many estate wineries.

Where we are heading (with artfully placed grapes)

Even in the shabby towns one could find nice pastries

These sunflowers had really large heads for their size

Carcasonne like many famous old cities at first does not reveal its charms. In this case, the D road we were following in transformed into a 4 lane highway, before falling back to two lanes of nondescript miscellaneous building and businesses. We kept looking up and around for the famous medieval walled city, but even when the roadsigns declared we were in Carcasonne, the Cite coyly hid. The Cite is larger, we think, than Aigues-Mortes, and it has lots more towers and spires. Like Aigues-Mortes, though, it is a perfectly preserved complete exterior wall. (We later learned there is a outer and an inner wall, built at different times.)

Of course, you can't hide a thing like that forever, and we soon had ascended to the base of the great walls. People (lots of people) were walking up a cobbled rampway and entering the city, but since we wanted to have the best look around, we decided to go to the camping first, set up the tent and stash the bikes.

We were dismayed by what seemed like a long descent to the camping, and we asked if there was some sort of shuttle back up. No, was the reply, but there is a trail from here, just 15 minutes.

Actually, it took 30 minutes to walk back up. We entered the city and were surprised to find that unlike Aigues-Mortes, every single building inside was occupied by a souvenir shop, restaurant, specialty food shop, boutique, or hotel. The narrow passageways were thronged with tourists. It would have been impossible to bring the bikes in, so it was good that we had stashed them.

I was rather taken with the authentic walls and towers, coupled with all the shops to look at. However, as always, we had come in knowing nothing. Who built this and why? Who were the Cathars, qndnwhy is this area called the land of the Cathars? We expected these questions to be handled quickly when we arrived by some well placed tourist handouts. However all we could find was some booklets for sale, with very garbled recitations of names and dates. We did find the Tourist Information but they only seemed to have a cartoonish map.

Dodie started to use highly derogatory terms to describe what we were seeing, like "Disneyland", so Imfigured I had better feed her. Tony had warned us in the guestbook not to eat here, but there really was no other choice. We surveyed menus from the 5 or 10 restaurants jqmmed together all around us, and chose one with a €14 formula choice. We got mixed salad, chicken with fries, and sugar crepe. The actual food qualified as the worst we have found in France. Amazingly, each and every component, from the stale bread to the bland crepe sprinkled with table sugar, was of low quality. Score one for Tony Calvert.

Notwithstanding the low quality. the food restored Dodie enough for a bit of a look around.The towers and walls were impressive, and the shops interesting, but she was right, it was all too much commercialism and almost no history.

One shop we did find was a phenomenon on its own, with tons of exotic dried and glace fruit. We bought a bunch. Across the walkway was an equally phenomenal chocolate shop. They were just closing. Darn!

As we walked the trail back to the tent, we could look up at the impressive Cite. We also noticed that the wind had completely dropped. We should almost run and take down the tent and then cycle all night, before the wind wakes up again!

No, that would be too bold a move, so its into the sleeping bags for us. Tomorrow could be the sixth straight day of headwinds, but tonight it's sweet dreams and dried mango in the morning!

The following photos illustrate Carcasonne buildings or crowds or tourist stuff

Candied mangoes. They said the preserving process takes 6 months

Our walk home to the tent from the walled city.

Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 4,326 km (2,686 miles)

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