March 13, 2026 - Carcassonne

We left the apartment at 7:20 and arrived at the train station with 3 minutes to spare for the 7:47 train, which saved us almost an hour . We decided that since it’s an uphill climb to the medieval city and about 1.5 km away that we would take the bus. With the hour we had saved by taking an earlier train we could spare the 45-minute wait for the bus. We were happy to have taken the bus because it would have been a hard climb.

A view of the Pyrenees mountains from the train.

We have arrived.

N o lack of color on this boat.

We couldn't resist taking a picture of this sign.    

Interesting building while waiting for the bus.

The medieval city had at least 3 school buses of kids of various ages. The man at the tourist office told us that if we had come yesterday, it would have been much quieter. He said there was almost nobody visiting yesterday.  Too late for that. It wasn’t too bad because they all left early in the afternoon.

Views from the ground.

Beautiful stained glass.

We walked all the small streets and alleys and a bit on the outside before deciding to get tickets for the castle and its 3 km of ramparts. The village itself is free to everyone. The man at the tourist bureau had said there was a lot of up and down steps, but we had not understood that it was around 300 steps (stairs) if you did all the circuit. We thought that he meant if you climbed a certain tower. Anyway, I’ m sure, we will be feeling those stairs tomorrow.

Views from the ramparts

We found 11 caches inside the medieval city before heading back to the new city. Since it was downhill we opted to walk back, taking the path that took us on the old bridge which is pedestrian only. We knew that we would have a nice view for picture taking on the bridge.

We stopped at the Saint Michel cathedral but after seeing the cathedral in Albi yesterday, even if this one was nice, it was not as overwhelming as Sainte Cecile Cathedral. We will probably be comparing every cathedral or church we visit to the one in Albi for a while. And there all a lot of churches in Europe. A nice thing about France is that the churches are free to visit. In most countries in Europe, you must pay to enter unless you go to Sunday mass.

We arrived at the train station in time to catch the 4:45 train back to Toulouse. We took a beer break on the patio and small snack before going to see what the Capitole looked like at night. It was full of people having drinks in the bars outside or just walking around. The Capitole is lighted at night creating a really nice effect and atmosphere to walk around. We will have to go there again for an evening stroll.