After breakfast, we met with a local guide at 9:00am to go a guided walk through the old city. The tour was in French and English, but I found it too challenging to follow her French accented English and exposition of unfamiliar history. Maybe it was also the wind noise of the last few days screwing up my hearing. The history of France is complicated, so I'm sure that also contributted to my lack of understanding. After reading up a bit, I can boil it down to this:
Carcassonne is a historic fortified city in southern France, renowned for its double walls and 52 towers. Originally established as a Celtic settlement in the 6th century BC, it grew into a strategic Roman stronghold and was later ruled by Visigoths, the Islamic Caliphate, French Crusaders, and finally the French Crown.
It was originally settled by the Gauls in about 600BC. Then it was fortified by the Romans in about 100BC. After that, it was controlled by Visigoths, Umayyad Caliphate, then conquered by the Frankish King Pippin the Short in 759 AD. A few hundred years later, the Trencavel dynasty ruled the city for about 200 years. In the Albigensian Crusade in 1209, the was besieged and surrendered to crusaders led by Simon de Montfort. The city was annexed by the French Crown in 1247. Then King Louis IX and Philip III built the outer ring of fortifications.
Following the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees, which redefined the border between France and Spain, Carcassonne lost its defensive military value. La Cité (the fortified upper city) fell into severe disrepair and was largely abandoned.
Starting in 1853, the renowned architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc led a restoration. Now, Carcassonne is a designated UNESCO World Heritage site, recognized for preserving thousands of years of European military and medieval architecture.
We walked around La Cité (the old city/fortess), went into Basilique Saint-Nazaire-et-Saint-Celse (the Basilica of Saints Nazarius and Celsus) and looked at the fameous stained glass: If you want to really see the stained glass and understand the images, this website is pretty good, The Rose Window.
Kathi and I went for coffee with Tomaž and Bojidan (our AMT guides) then walked back home to the hotel. After a while, I went out searching for for an ATM. The fees vary a lot from 5 to 7 euros for the ATM fee and then from 6% to 12.97% for a conversion fee. Turn out you should decline the offer for conversion and withdraw euros letting Wise do the conversion at their customary 0.4% rate. However, it turns out that Wise also charges a 1.95% ATM use fee for withdrawls beyond the first $250 per month. Also, don't trust Google Maps to find an ATM cash machine. They happily recommend Banc Postal Postamat machines.
then together had bowls of beans and good salad and quiche low sugar lemon drink. Got money. No dinner but got to bed earlier. Refrigerator in the room not working, power with the room key --- this is a good reason to carry some random business cards to stick into the power switch while leaving with your room key. Balcony with view of the old city. Chris out in the evening to get pictures of the old city lit nicely.
On this rest day in Carcasonne, we had the option to do this 139 km (2h42m) loop, but we declined and instead really rested.
If you want to really see the stained glass and understand the images, this website is pretty good, The Rose Window.
When dusk was falling, Chris went out to get some pictures of the castle walls lit by flood lights at night.
