9/11 to 9/13 Carcassonne

The first thing I noticed rolling into Carcassonne on the sncf train was the view of the old city. What is that yellow stuff? I figured it was some kind of art, but what? Why would you deface the city like that? 



We kept seeing it from all directions, without a clue of the intention. In fact, our dinner mate at the Notre Dame de Abbaye dinner showed a photo that seemed to be the ultimate intention of the artist. It was similar to that below, but not quite.




On our last night we explored, trying to get the ultimate photograph and came upon this view. Voila voila voila. No one had prepared us for this view to be sure. It doesn’t look real does it?

Carcassone done in yellow aluminum tape.

But wait, there’s more. Last year we stayed at a pretty hostile little B&B near the train station, sadly pumped up by Rick Steves somewhat mistakenly I think. This year, thanks to last year’s research, we stayed at the Notre Dame du Abbaye, right outside the old city. The beauty: as a pilgrim, a bed and two meals is only Euro 25. We stayed two nights, so paid euro 19 for the second night, plus maybe euro 5 for breakfast. Hurrah! For this we had a dorm room. We actually had a male roommate, Christian I. We felt quite sad for him, a pilgrim sharing with three women. We had dinner with him, but he skulked out at dawn, cannot blame him.

Okay there’s more:

The gargoyles, this from the official cathedral, though there are plenty more churches.

This is the wall outside of Notre Dame d‘Abbaye.




Can’t stop with the painted city 

Still can’t stop.

The other thing is that when you walk outside the walled city, in an old, but not-as-old part of town, you find a lot of abandoned, or for rent shops. It is remarkable...this is a tourist town, it is the main city on the map in the region but yet it is struggling in parts.