France -- Carcassonne day 1

This morning (19 June 2010) mom, Judy, and I slept in a little and packed to check out of Hotel Campanille ~11:30 am. We took a taxi to Hotel du Pont Vieux and checked in. We got situated in our awesome room (#9 on the 4th floor) – it was up a lot of stairs! The room was great (probably my favorite from our entire trip) – we even had a perfect view of La Cité (the fortified medieval city of Carcassonne)!

We unpacked a little and decided to walk to some nearby markets (it was a Saturday so the town was bustling). We visited a vibrant produce market in the ville base and looked around at all of the beautiful produce, cheese, and sausage stands (with a little sampling along the way). We stayed in this square for a relaxing and tasty lunch at the Salon du Thé overlooking the market square. I had a fancy hot chocolate and a crudité sandwich (tomato, emmental, boiled egg, and lettuce on a crusty baguette) for my lunch.

After lunch, we continued walking to the train station where we bought our next sets of train tickets (for Carcassonne to Amboise and Amboise to Paris). It was a little rainy and cold outside so we walked back to the hotel to re-organize and store our train tickets in a safe place.

Next, we walked up to La Cité. Upon entrance through the drawbridge, we encountered a little Renaissance Faire in full swing – lots of people were dressed up in robes and playing flutes while drinking mead. We wandered through the streets and looked at a couple of shops in La Cité before heading back out to the ville base for dinner.

We walked back to the square where we had lunch earlier that day and had a nice dinner at a nearby café called L’Artichaut. I had roasted camembert on bread with salad and Serrano ham (and Orangina to drink) – it was a good meal. We walked back to the hotel and I wrote some e-mails before hiking back up to the room to get ready for bed. Another day in Carcassonne tomorrow!