Well, the holiday in
Carcassonne, France was great. We stayed in a modern, but very comfortable villa at
Caux-et-Sauzens, a sleepy town a mile or two west of
Carcassonne. Though we are assured it was populated we hardly ever saw a soul on the streets - perhaps they all ran a mile when they saw
'les anglais' approaching, even though I am of the brown-looking variety! (although there is an alternative explanation...)
Weather not so good for outdoor swimming though even we had a 'solar-heated' pool - it was the third week in August so we expected better. You could probably swim outdoors about 3-4 days out of the 7 days.
The airport, dominated by
Ryanair flights, was a tiny place, hardly noticeable from the main road. We arrived back two days after the well-publicised loss-of-oxygen incident, gulp! Having a six and a four year old, and only being away for a week, we stayed kinda local - the furthest we travelled was to Narbonne, a lovely old
Roman town, on the
Languedoc South coast, just south of
Marseilles. We discovered a little-advertised
'aquaparc' (
see picture, above) backing onto the wide, sandy and uncluttered
Narbonne beach and celebrated my lovely son's 4th birthday there.
We also did an obligatory, though very pleasant, visit to a
vineyard - to
'Le Labyrinthe' at Arzens
and its
Domaine la Bouriette. The recent
English owner (?Lorraine) had developed the site for tourists - she, and a visiting companion were charming, and our
children were well-amused by the 'maze' and 'petting zoo', whilst hubby and I did some wine-tasting. We certainly wish the vineyard the best of luck in marketing and selling their wines in the
UK.
(BTW I'm not sure if this is interesting to any would-be travellers to the area but I will ramble on about a couple more things we did (I know that I, at least, devoured the internet for info before travelling!)
Carcassonne is, of course, famous for its 'fairytale'
ancient castle (restored with some subsequent controversy) and we had to have the guided tour of Carcassonne in a
horse-drawn carriage
(for the sake of the children of course!). You get a comprehensive, 20-minute commentary (en Francais!) and the route takes you between the two ramparts on the fortified walls, departing from
Porte Narbonnaise. We thought it was worth it even though, seated at the front of the carriage as we were, we were treated to a long-lasting (and smelling!!) view of two horses' bums!
Another holiday activity, though cliched, but well-worth doing with children was the daily
medieval jousting shows inside the castle walls - this really was a holiday-highlight for our
kids, and it didn't matter how much noise they made! Hooray!
BTW the
AngloINFO Languedoc-Roussillon website site was quite good for places to go-do-and-see, especially for famillies.
Away from the Castle (or
le cite as it is known
), you can walk to the medieval lower town or the '
ville basse' (as it is known) for services, shops, more restaurants and bistros (further to the ones actually inside the cobbled streets of Carassonne's castle, which was a surprise for us). Also in the
ville is its central square , the
Place Carnot, alongside its central riverway (see below). A market takes over
Place Carnot in on Saturdays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, with a colourful and appetising range of
Mediterranean produce. Just south-west of here, the covered market at
Place d'Eggenfelden is also worth a look. The main shopping street is the pedestrianised
rue Clemenceau, which leads from the elegant 18th-century
Porte des Jacobins northwards towards the railway station. Most of the offerings are branches of French retail chains.
The central riverway mentioned above is actually a canal - the
Canal du Midi is an 18th-century engineering marvel that still serves to link the
Atlantic and the
Mediterranean, though these days it is used mainly by pleasure craft. From the
railway station side, you can take a
cruise on the canal of between 90 minutes (€7/£5) and two hours (€10/£7). I really enjoyed walking along the canal, appreciating the calm, the water, the lovely surrounding trees and the boats slowly moseying down with happy people aboard - it reminded me a lot of the
Norfolk Broads where I've had a few boating holidays as a complete novice and was surprised at loving it.
I could go on...but won't. I've come to love this part of France since first travelling there in 2007 to
Provence - that time we stayed in a dream
mas in
Eygalieres, just south of
Avignon. Hope you've enjoyed reading about our travels, for now - though the length of time it took me to write it up is a sign of our hectic lives! Bye for now...
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The exhibition reveals the ‘Punjab’, a region spanning India and Pakistan. The complex history of this region and its modern significance are explored from the perspectives of five UK community groups with links to both countries.The ‘moving journeys’ of successive generations of Punjabi people, both within and across borders, are explored.
