Carcassonne - Millau

We had a good sleep, nice comfy beds and not any noise, luxury by our standards.

After breakfast we walked the dogs round the park for a bit then drove to Carcassonne. It turned out to be a lovely city, split into 2 parts by the river, the old part on one side and the new part on the other side. The sky was blue and the temperature was high.

We rented an audio guide from the tourist office and decided to do the walking tour of the old town but we got slightly confused and didn’t realise that the audio guide was for the new town. By the time we found out we were in the old town and decided to scrap the audio guide and carry on.

This is the main part of Carcassonne

Susan and Dan in the main part

The new town from the river.

A pet shop that sold doggy clothes, thankfully all too small for our dogs.

The old castle ramparts

And again

Carcassonne became famous in its role in the Albigensian Crusades, when the city was a stronghold of occitan cathars. In August 1209 the crusading army of Simon de Montfort forced its citizens to surrender. After capturing Raymond-Roger de Trencavel and imprisoning and allowing him to die, Montfort made himself the new viscount. He added to the fortifications. Carcassonne became a border citadel between France and the kingdom of Aragon (Spain).

In 1240 Trencavel's son tried to reconquer his old domain but in vain. The city submitted to the rule of kingdom of France in 1247, and King Louis IX founded the new part of the town across the river. He and his successor Philip III built the outer ramparts. Contemporary opinion still considered the fortress impregnable. During the Hundred Years' War, Edward the Black Prince failed to take the city in 1355, although his troops destroyed the Lower Town.

In 1659, the Treaty of Pyrenees transferred the border province of Roussillon to France, and Carcassonne's military significance was reduced. Fortifications were abandoned, and the city became mainly an economic center that concentrated on the woollen textile industry, for which a 1723 source quoted by Fernand Braudel found it “the manufacturing center of Languedoc”

This bird was eying up Dan for dinner.

She was handing out leaflets.

This guy was painted like a statue, we didn’t give him any money

We took this for Susans brother, he likes Knight Templar things

Susan was  tired and needed to sit down

We walked round the old walled city for ages, it was busy and really interesting. Not ideal having dogs but the French are quite geared up for them and many other people had dogs too.

Even the bottoms of the drains are ornate.

We handed back the audio guide, told the guy it was very interesting an headed back to the car. In the 10 mins I was standing outside the tourist office, at least 6 people stopped and said what lovely dogs. Collies seem rare here too.

We headed back to the car and drove the 200km to Millau. John and Jenny had suggested that the Millau bridge is good to see and it certainly gets a bit of publicity, it’s certainly a very attractive structure. However, I was a little --- underwhelmed!

We’d decided to have a hotel again and chose Millau as the place, it looks a nice town. We parked in the centre and found the tourist office, they suggested a few dog friendly hotels, we booked into the first one, not great but only 65 euros and in the town centre. The town looks lovely and we had  a bit of a walk round. We decided that we might as well drive the bridge and go to the viewpoint so we set off again for the main road. We stopped at the viewpoint and it was very nice from here, quite artistic and better than from the other place. We took a few pics

This is from the original viewpoint and you can just make out the bridge in the distance, click the pic to make it bigger.

It looks much better from here

They can tell their pals when they get back that they have seen the Millau bridge

We drove back to the town and stopped by the river to give the dogs a swim.

No idea what these girls were doing, Susan thought they might be watching the shadows on the pavement.

We got to the river and there was a couple with a black lab so I bent down to unhook bens lead, I managed to get the strap from my camera round his neck and he took off dragging my camera over the stones and into the river. It is knackered but at least I managed to save the pictures. Not a happy bunny but the dogs had fun.

We’re heading out for dinner and a walk about the town. Camping for the next while so not sure when the next blog will be. I’ll continue to write it and publish it when I get a connection.