Carcassonne Day Trip

Our first big day-trip with my parents took us to Carcassonne!

Dad at the Castle

I plugged in the address of the parking lot, and off we went! And, out in the middle of nowhere, we heard "you have arrived at your destination"... Well, we kept going, and just as I was ready to try a right turn, a very nice gentleman noticed that I was not where I wanted to be - he rolled down his window, I rolled down mine, and said "We're looking for La Cité.?." He said "follow me!" A bit further, and he pointed to the parking lot entrance - we parted as lifelong friends :-)

Since minimizing walking was high on our needs-list, we gravitated to this :-)

Next, we dropped by the tourist office for maps, then got lunch, then on to the basilica

We listened to a fabulous Russian quintet singing a capella in the church, then went back outside

Dad and I walked the ramparts (just the red route*), while Mom looked in the shops and Rick relaxed in the park

~~~

* The ramparts tour is like this: you buy one ticket that is good all day, and walk either the red (ending at the Narbonnais gate) or green route (ending at the basilica) - the routes are one-way, so you finish one, the walk back to the castle and enter on your same ticket to start the second route.

The smart thing to do would have been to walk the green route, then tour the basilica, then look around the town, then walk the red route and leave out the gate.

But it was still interesting, and we were plenty tired!

At the end, we all agreed that having the wheelchair was a big plus!

My last visit, with Rick, was in 2015: http://slowtravelin.blogspot.com/2015/09/carcassonne.html