Tag Archives: Sycamore Trees

Carcassonne, Friday 13th…

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Day 46, Friday, October 13, 2023.

Bob decided he does not want to drive on Friday 13.  I didn’t know he was so superstitious!  That works for me.  I am happy stay put for a bit.  We had originally planned a couple day trips from Carcassonne: to Albi to visit the Toulouse Lautrec museum and to Toulouse for a tour of the AirBus factory.  That isn’t going to happen now as I’m not feeling up to two long days of travel and sightseeing.  Too bad but it is what it is.  So I have a quiet morning and Bob goes exploring. He climbs the hill to visit the back side of La Cité.

He walks over to the cemetery we saw in the distance yesterday.  We both enjoy visiting old cemeteries.

On the way to La Cité he walks along a wall covered with a medieval style mural spelling out the name Carcassonne.  We saw this at the end of street when we walked to La Cité yesterday but didn’t look at it then. I was unable to find out any information about this, which is a shame. It is really quite lovely.,

In the late afternoon we both go for a little walk.  I find more gargoyles, well…actually Bob was the one who spotted these.

We go into Église Saint Vincent and… discover that we can climb the bell tower for just 2.5 euros!  I’m not wanting to do it today but I hope we can get back another day.  We have climbed a lot of bell towers on our other trips, but so far not a one this time.

The old city in Carcassone has a lovely big open square with a fountain and lots of restaurants and cafés around its perimeter.  There are lots of people sitting outside enjoying the lovely evening.

I had to get a photo of this huge old Sycamore tree.  I wish they would grow back home.  Our winters are just too cold.

Shop windows are starting to display Halloween items.  These creatures are all made of chocolate.  We have seen so many closed shops, restaurants and galleries.  Every block in this old part of town, which is frequented by tourists, has at least one or two shops that have shut down.  On some streets almost every second shop is closed. I am pretty sure this is because of Covid.  It makes me quite sad.

 

Sarlat to Carcassonne, France

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Day 42, Monday, October 9, 2023

We have a long drive to Carcassone today so we are up early.  Bob moves the car closer to our apartment so we don’t have to carry everything for three blocks, and no one is even up and about yet.  We have our breakfast and evening meals at home so we have accumulated quite a few groceries, along with our other luggage.

You can just make out the butcher’s stand on the street right beside the entrance to our apartment in the lower left corner of this photo.  He is the first merchant to open his doors, usually by 8:00 am and he is open until 8:00 pm, or even longer if there are still people on the street…and he works every day of the week!  When I told him that he works too hard he said only until today, then he gets two weeks holiday.

This is the paid parking lot near our apartment but it gives us an hour free time.  More than enough to load our car and get on the road.  I do love the Sycamore trees that we see everywhere in France.  They are magnificent, so huge, and they have the most interesting bark that looks like camouflage.  I have no idea how they survive in the middle of a paved parking lot… they can’t get much water.

It is a 3.5 hour drive to Carcassonne and we had planned to detour to Albi to visit the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec.  Lautrec was born in Albi and this museum has artwork that can only be seen here. However we didn’t even think about museums being closed on Mondays when we planned our bnb stays, so the museum is closed.  I am quite disappointed as I was really looking forward to seeing this artwork and especially the large  collection of Lautrec drawings that are in this museum.  Of course other museums we were interested in Toulouse were also closed so we decide to just drive and get to Carcassonne a bit earlier in the day.

We have seen some interesting bathroom signs on our travels, this one made me chuckle.

As we drive south we start to see the odd cypress trees, which makes me think of Vincent Van Gogh and all the cypress trees he painted.

It is always an adventure, walking into a new Airbnb and checking it out…is it going to be what we were expecting?  So far we have chosen well and not been disappointed.