Carcassonne, fairy tale city

When we arrived in Carcassonne, we took an afternoon walk around the outer town that surrounds the medieval walled city/castle, and then walked up to the walled castle for dinner. These are some buildings from the walk.

Now for the good stuff – crossing the river toward the castle walls:

The Castle!

We ate at this awesome little restaurant inside the walls, that was built about 500 years ago. (Also a picture of it we took the next day – it was one of our best meals!)

Saw Neptune on the walk back to our pension before calling it a night.

The next day… Time to explore the castle! (and it was cold!)

There are two walls surrounding the walled part of the city. The inner wall was originally built by the Romans around 2000 years ago. Those walls held up until the siege of 1209 – the siege was an attack ordered by Pope Innocent III as a crusade against Cathars/Albigensians. The Roman foundations of that wall can still be seen. In 1226, a new outer wall was built. The site has seen many periods of re-building (and sieges/destruction), and it was reconstructed (during the 19^th Century) its 13^th Century form.

The city really was built for protection – there was a lot of warring going on. Here’s an illustration of the city. The second picture is of a perfectly to-scale model that took years to make by hand in the 19^th Century.

There were a lot of systems built for defence – Here’s the moat and a drawbridge:

If an attacking army got past the moat and 2 walls, there was a semi-circular barbican…

… And another moat with a narrow bridge (protected by archers from the towers.)

On the inside of all the protective walls, is a “lordly residence” with courtyards, chapels, and rooms with intricate carvings.

The rest of the town, that is outside of the walled part was built across the river (in its current location) in 1240. Here’s the story: In 1233, Raymond Trencavel tried to recapture his own home/castle (which had earlier been attacked & taken by the crusaders - Trencavel was friends with some of the aforementioned Cathars, so he was one of the targets of the Crusade. And the Crusaders/Pope/king stole his castle). His siege to get his castle back was unsuccessful, and Louis IX (Saint Louis) punished him by imprisoning & killing him – and Louis IX burned the rest of the town down and did not allow people/families to re-build for 7 years. But 7 years later (1240) he allowed people to re-build – but across the river. No word on how people survived (or how many died) during those 7 homeless years. Why is this Louis guy a saint?!?

There's a basilica inside the walls:

There are these weird gargoyle carvings:

The inside is pretty standard, in terms of “grand medieval cathedrals.” It was built in the 11^th Century, and remodeled in the 14^th Century. The stained glass is ornate and impressive.

We meandered through the rest of the walled city, which is very pretty:

Leaving the castle…

The next day, we rented bikes and set off for a “French countryside” adventure, riding along the canal.

There were so many beautiful views – we think we biked about 40 km/25 miles – at a pretty relaxed, meandering pace.

Interesting bridges,

Some horses…

A dog that ran along with us for a while…

Curves in the canal…

And some locks, always with a house/office beside it.

Oh, to live in the French countryside… It wasn’t even spring and green yet when we were there, I can’t even imagine how pretty it is when all the leaves are green and in bloom.

Carcassonne is magical, with its medieval castle and surrounding countryside.

Arles, Because We Love ‘Ronin’

This may sound a little strange, but our main reasons for thinking about visiting Arles is because it is featured in the movie Ronin, a favorite of ours. If you are not familiar, the movie stars Robert De Niro and Jean Reno and is based around a group of mercenaries attempting to control a silver brief case. Doesn’t sound that exciting until you add in some spectacular car chase scenes and gunplay. De Niro and Reno follow a rouge mercenary to Arles, where he is hiding out, and there is a cool chase scene that involves the old Roman arena there. We did some research of the town and it is just a 20 minute train ride from Avignon, so we decided to check it out.

Arles was an ancient roman colony founded in 46 BC during Julius Ceaser’s reign. The train station is to the north and you pass through and old gate and some old walls as you enter the city. There are some sections of the old city walls, but they are gone except for some small portions and a few towers. There is a bending river that we walked along, then made our way to the central square pictured above. In the center is an obelisk, which was originally in the center of the nearby ‘circus’, where roman chariot races took place. In front is the Hotel De Ville and to the left a church.

On the right side of the central square is another church, St. Trophime. A church was originally built in the 7^th century and most of the building we see today was built in the 14^th Century. The façade has some very nice detailed carving. The interior is pretty austere, but includes some large local tapestries and this finely carved alter.

Connected to the St. Trophime church is the Cloister, also with constructions in the 7^th and 14^th Centuries. The carvings of the pillars surrounding the cloister were very detailed, with lots of religious figures, soldiers, other people and animals. We were able to go upstairs to some of the vaulted rooms and even walk outside above the cloister. There was another room showcasing these large tapestries with their signature blue coloring.

Underneath the Hotel De Ville is the Cryptoloporticos, which were the foundations of a Roman Forum built in the 1^st Century BC. The complex originally housed administrative, judicial, economical, and religious functions of the roman city. The current ground level is now 6 meters above where they used to be. It is an amazing U-shaped series of arches with little side rooms on one end. There are also bits of columns and statues strewn about the place.

These are some old cells, found now in an open courtyard lined by government offices, that have been used over the years. Most recently, they were used to imprison Jews during WWII.

Arles also has a fairly well preserved Roman Amphitheater. It looks like there are still a lot of original pieces and columns lying about, but a lot of the Amphitheater itself looked redone. They still hold performances in it today.

Right in the middle of the city is the Arena, built in the 1^st Century BC, with a capacity of 20,000. It is really well preserved, only the top section is gone (very few Arena’s have the top section, Nimes may be one of the few that does) so they have some unsightly metal risers all over the place. It is now used as a bull-fighting arena. We think we found a location of a scene from Ronin, where there is a standoff with Gregor above and two thugs below. Here is Megan recreating the scene.

Vincent Van Gogh spent a few years later in his life in Arles. He produced some of his most famous pieces here, including some of the sunflower paintings and a painting of his bedroom. In several places where we painted scenes in Arles, there are little placards like this one showing the painting. This is a hospital that Van Gogh stayed at after a mental breakdown. There is also a draw bridge south of town and a hotel with paintings that we know about.

Our visit culminated in a visit to the Arles antique museum, which houses a sizeable collection of Roman artifacts. One things that was quite amazing was a map of the Roman Empire that really shows how vast it was. Here are some of our favorites.

There was a temporary exhibit entitled “Ceasar” and had a room full of loaned objects that included busts, sculptures, jewelry, and other small pieces.

This is a sarcophagus from the nearby Alyscamps, a well-preserved, ancient cemetery on the outskirts of the old city walls of Arles. In Roman times, cemeteries were not allowed in the cities.

Here is a 3-D model of Roman Arles. The museum is the top left of the Circus (now a little park), which is that white rectangle at the top left of the picture. The streets and the city plan is almost exactly the same to this day.

The museum also had a collection of tiled floors. Some of them were massive, including this almost complete floor.

On the way back to the train station we walked past another of Van Goghs scenes, this one of a hotel he lived in when he first move to Arles. The only difference is that some of the small surrounding buildings are no longer there.