Trip to Ireland & France, Day 7, Wednesday February 18th

After the long day Gordon and I let Aisling and the wrinklies sleep late and we headed to return the rental car. The car rental office itself was closed, but we turned it back inside La Gare. We then headed back to the hotel and met the others to head up to La Cite for the day. It was great. We walked the shorter, but somewhat steep way. We wandered around the , the moat and battlements, enjoyed the daytime view of the Ville Basse. Once we got up to La Cite, Nan and Nana stopped for coffee and Gordon, Aisling and I went to La Maison Hantee, the Haunted House. It was very scary, but all the ghosts spoke french so I'm not really sure what I was afraid of. It was a unique experience, you wandered from room to room as the doors automatically opened for you and then people jumped out and scared you in French.

We then headed up to the castle and did the tour. We learned a lot about Carcassonne and the castle. Some highlights. The town is supposedly named after Mme. Carcass. When the town was under siege, after several months of siege she had the bright idea to have a pig killed in view of the attackers (under the command of a french king). The attackers then concluded that if they were killing pigs for no good reason, then they must have lots of food and could hold out for months, so they retreated. As they left, Mme Carcassonne had all the bells in the city rung, and one of the retreating warriors said that "Mmm Carcass sonne". Sonne means rings. The tour also explained the winds, the cold one that we experienced while we were there is called the "cers". The town was restored beginning in the 19th century. The towers on the wall are from several different time periods, including some Roman towers, which are "u" shaped. While it was in operation, the castle would have had wooden walkways built, so there were a couple of these walkways built so that we could see what they were like. They had slits in the floor, called murder holes, where the defending soldiers could throw object like stones or arrows at attackers making there way forward. Apparently, nobody ever threw boiling oil or water - this is just a myth - as oil and water were just too precious. It was an interesting tour, but walking along the top of the castle was cold!

After we were done in the castle, we also went to the the church in La Cite, formerly a cathedral, the Cathedral de St. Nazaire. It was much smaller than the cathedral in Toulouse. But it had very nice stained glass. The old part of the cathedral was freezing! The walls were several feet thick, and that seemed to hold in the cold for us. We wanted to visit the hotel de la Cite, the fancy hotel there, which we heard was beautiful. However, it was actually closed until March 6th, so we didn't get to see it.

That night, we ate dinner in a little restaurant in La Cite. It was in a most interesting building. The bathroom was very bizarre, very low ceiling and very tiny. I don't believe it would have met anyone's ADA requirements. We ordered steak, which was cooked on a wood fire in the dining room. There was live music, mostly Spanish singers and guitar players. Our waitress was a very friendly Scottish woman from Glasgow. All in all, it was one of our best meals in France.