﻿The medieval town of Carcassonne in the southwest part of France is such an important historic
landmark that the castle and entire walled town are on the UNESCO's list of World Heritage sites.
It's surrounded by two fortified walls with a castle in the center. And within the walls is a
small village, in a pedestrian zone with historic buildings, some of which date back to the 12th
century. Google Earth provides a spectacular view of the Old Town, showing very clearly the double
wall that goes all the way around the medieval center, and the castle, and the turrets. There's a
tall inner wall and a lower outer wall, providing two layers of protection for the old medieval
city. The main entrance through the massive walls is into this fortified gate with a projecting
barbican thatv has stone walls along both si des for protection and drawbridge to create an
effective barrier at this potential weak spot and keep out any attackers. We'll have a lot more to
say about this gate later in the program when we walk on the wall all the way around the fortress.
But first, we want to enter the town and take a walk along its beautiful lanes,
look at the shops and generally get oriented. Right away as, soon as you get through the gate,
you'll find yourself on the main street of town. It's for pedestrians, no cars allowed inside the
Old Town except a few service vehicles and some of the local residents. You will find
it's very rewarding to stroll about the lanes that are inside the village. It's not a large
city by any means. The village itself is about 400 meters long and just over 200 meters wide,
so it's easy to walk around and get a nice feeling for the whole place. And yet there's enough here
that you could easily spend a full day or even two days exploring it. There cannot be very many
places in the world that produce so profound an effect upon the imagination and the sense
of beauty and history as the old walled town of Carcassonne, especially when you are walking along
its wall. Stepping back into the 13th century when this town was attacked by the pope from Rome.
More about that crazy story coming up a bit later. The town offers historical programs
featuring costumed guides for visitors and also for the local school kids. Oh, there's something
about castles that appeals to the kid in all of us. It really fires up the romance of the past,
and it's really helped along by these costumed guides who put on a show for the little kids and
tell them some of the many legends associated with the spectacular castle of Carcassonne.
Within the walls, we have an actual functioning town with shops, there's several small hotels, and
there's 50 homes for the local residents as well, with a small plaza in the center or hosting some
outdoor terrace restaurants, and a vast pedestrian zone that you'll want to explore. The main street
we walked in on could keep some visitors busy for many hours, maybe for a couple of days right
here on this one block. So many shops, mostly souvenirs, but there's a variety of all kinds
of goods, clothing and food. One of the nicest and most popular spots in town is Place Marcou,
with its outdoor restaurants and bars, cafes, tables all around it. This is a happy place. It's
quiet during this non-meal hour, but during lunch and dinner it gets very busy. Let's have a look
at night and you'll see people are out enjoying themselves with a fine meal and some good drinks.
It's not just for visitors. Local residents come up from down below to also enjoy the atmosphere.
In addition to the fortified Old Town there is a large new town down at the bottom of the hill
that you can walk to in about 15 minutes and do a little bit more exploring. There are some
lovely shops, pedestrian streets and the open market. It's well worth visiting. And this is
another reason for you to be spending a couple of days in Carcassonne. And there's a good selection
of affordable hotels in the new town. We'll take a stroll down there later in the program.
But of course, your main focus will be the Old Town, and one of the highlights
is certainly the castle. It is one of the top attractions in the country.
In the center of the walled town of Carcassonne is the castle. And so, of course, when you're
visiting here, you must go inside this medieval castle. It dates back to the 13th and 14th
century, and it's a remarkable intact structure from the Middle Ages. The castle is one of the
most exciting features of the town, and you can go inside. It's open to the public as a museum. It
was the medieval home of the Lord of this region. Before entering the castle, enjoy a view from the
terrace, and notice those wooden extensions from the top of the wall. They enabled defenders to
drop rocks, burning oil, and shoot arrows at any attackers trying to get up the walls. This was the
first castle to use such wooden platforms. The castle is a fortress inside the walled fortress
with a dry moat around it crossed by a stone bridge leading to the entrance. The front gate,
surrounded by a semi-circular barbican wall providing a more defense. Another Google
Earth view shows the overall castle shape, with its central courtyards and fortified walls and
towers. This castle was first built from the early 12th century, but the fortifications have a much
longer history that I'll be explaining during the program as we walk around the wall. Once you've
paid the small admission fee, you're welcome to enjoy the various courtyards and also enter inside
the castle where they have a historical museum. We'll see more of the museum later, but for now,
we want to get moving and start the walk along the castle wall, which is included in the admission
fee for the castle. Hold on to your museum admission ticket because after you've finished
walking the walls, you can come back inside and see more of the castle and museum later.
We are going to take you on a walk along the entire length of those walls in the
old fortified town of Carcassonne. Another Google Earth view provides that perspective,
showing how the wall goes around the entire Old Town and a photograph from the Tourist Information
Office shows the many buildings that are within the walls. As you walk along on top of the wall,
you also get nice views looking out at the city beyond and some beautiful landscapes of vineyards,
olive groves and green rolling hills. We did the first part of the wall walk with a castle guide.
"And welcome to the city of Carcassonne. We leave the castle to go and walk upon the
battlements of the wall, of the western wall of the city, and we end up by the church."
Once you have paid admission to the museum, you could do this walk on your own, or they
have audio guide that you can use, or make a reservation and go with one of the castle guides.
From the top of the wall and from outside the walls give you a real good perspective.
It's one of the defining qualities of this city created by the medieval walls around it. Looking
inside the old fortified town at some of the gardens and courtyards and lovely buildings,
including a deluxe hotel, the Hotel de la Cite. We'll take you inside that hotel later
and describe some other hotel options for you. The millions of tourists who walk around the walls
of Carcassonne do so mainly in order to visit a medieval town. But only a few of them do so
in order to discover one of the most important sets of fortifications of the late Roman Empire.
No one is quite sure when people first arrived at this location, but the first signs of settlement
in this region have been archeologically dated to about 3500 B.C. and the hill became an important
trading place in the sixth century B.C., on this rocky spur overlooking the valley of the old
river and the ancient routes linking the Atlantic with the Mediterranean and the Iberian Peninsula,
a very strategic location. A little more history coming up later. You can walk all the way around
this fortified town either on top of the wall, or between the walls, or outside the wall. There are
three basic sections of the wall walk. We've just done part one on the rampart. Next, we'll walk
on the outer wall and then continue between the two walls called the "List" and then come around
back to where we started at the castle. But at the end of the first section of the ramparts,
before we continue walking, we have a chance to visit the Basilica of Carcassonne. Say goodbye
to our local guide. What a bonus, you can see, to time your museum visit to the castle so that
you also take the wall walk. Originally, this was a cathedral back in the 10th and 11th centuries.
It was built in a Romanesque and Gothic style, and is the oldest building in Carcassonne. The church
in Carcassonne is something that you must visit while you're here. It's a gothic church, and when
it was first built, it was the cathedral of the town, and there was no new town down below at
that time. It was only Carcassonne. This was the seat of their bishop, and it's beautifully
preserved. It's an amazing structure with the stained glass, very famous stained glass over
the main altar and the gothic pointed arches and the stone construction all around you,
and especially nice in the morning, because then the sun is beaming right onto the windows. But any
time of day and it's free and open throughout the day, so it's very easy to come visit.
It's a national monument of France. It was formally a cathedral until 1801 when it was
replaced by a more modern cathedral down in the lower town. The original church is thought to
have been constructed in the sixth century during the reign of Theodoric the Great, the ruler of the
Visigoths. And in 1096, Pope Urban II visited the town and blessed the stones that were being used
to build the new cathedral. And construction was completed in the first half of the 12th century.
Originally constructed in the Romanesque style, the church was enlarged between 1269
and 1330 in the Gothic style. Carcassonne was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997,
and as part of their justification, they have a brilliant description of Carcassonne, which we're
going to share partly with you now. They explain that the main body of the cathedral "consists of a
central six-bayed nave with an interrupted barrel vault, and two narrow side aisles rising to almost
the same height and fully vaulted. The transverse arches of the barrel vaulting spring alternately
from square columns surrounded by embedded columns and round pillars. The original Romanesque choir
was replaced in the latter 13th century by an imposing high Gothic structure." This is a large
transept with a six-sided apse at its eastern end. The church contains some important sculpture. The
stained glass in the windows of the Alps and the transept is of exceptionally high quality.
Three periods can be distinguished: the late 13th century, early 14th century, and the 16th century.
This church could be easily missed, even though we're in a very small village, because it's at
the far end and it doesn't look too spectacular on the outside. It's that rather plain gothic
exterior with no flying buttresses. There are some gargoyles, but the interior is really quite
spectacular. You can see the church location in that white circle and another Google view that
shows you the route that we're taking now between the high inner wall and shorter outer wall.
Perhaps you've noticed there have been some staircases along this wall, but really it's
not too strenuous. Anybody can take this walk. It's just a total of three kilometers. You can
easily do it in under an hour, relaxing and enjoying the views. Most of it is quite level.
This illustration gives you a very clear idea of how these two walls were situated,
with the big towers providing the defenders fortified positions to fire at the attackers.
This section of the wall is open to the public at no charge. It's all free. And it is a fascinating
stretch of wall because we're walking on that lower outer wall just in front of the high
bastion. And in between is the open area they call the "list" which was also part of the defensive
fortifications, sometimes used for storage of their weapons. And during times of peace,
they would hold jousting tournaments here with knights on horseback and lances, trying to knock
each other down. It was the days of chivalry. Both sets of walls underwent reconstruction during the
final phase of building in the late 13th century, with more towers added and enlarged. Another view
of that same section from outside the lower wall, standing in what would have been a dry moat, for
one more ring of protection. We've now completed most of the walk around the walls from the castle,
passing the church, and now we've arrived at the Narbonne Gate that we will describe in a moment.
From here we will continue around the rest of the wall. Or if you wish, you could cut out and
head right back into town, returning to the castle where you began. Any time you have a walled city,
you still have to have some kind of entrance. But that's a potential weak point in the
fortifications. So they have to have a gate that's highly protected with walls all around
it. Here you can see a side view of the Narbonne Gate with the fortified barbican coming out, and
that's actually protecting a drawbridge that could be raised to further strengthen the defenses,
and then the big tower up behind it, so that the bowmen can be shooting down on the enemies. And
there's trapdoors that can drop boiling oil and rocks and boulders onto people trying to attack.
They can close the gate, dropping a portcullis and trap the invaders inside the barbican, then
shoot down on them in this stone enclosure, all to protect the entrance to Carcassonne. You'll
see this complicated entrance solved the problem of how do you get through a wall while keeping the
attackers out. The Narbonne Gate functions like the front door of the city nowadays, and on the
opposite side is the Aude Gate, which leads to the new town. It takes just 5 minutes to walk
from one side of the village to the other. From here you could walk through the Narbonne Gate,
then walk up the main little shopping lane of town. It will lead you back to the castle.
But there is one more part of the wall that you can visit. Well, now we're going to continue
around this final section where we are going to see some evidence of the early Roman wall.
Once again, we have an outer wall and then a clear space and a higher inner wall,
with an interesting gate leading inside the old town. It's a medieval feature which is believed
to be where the ancient Roman gate was also located, as seen here from inside the wall.
These big walls are from the medieval period, but they are built on a foundation of earlier
Roman walls that date back to the third and fourth centuries, as proven by that unique
Roman technique of using brick in construction of their stone walls. The medieval builders
inserted foundations underneath the Roman wall to stabilize them, as you see in the circle.
The original Roman walls were a three meters thick and 6 to 8 meters high, characteristic
of the late Roman style, with rubble cores faced with stone and bricks on a concrete foundation.
This route brings us around to the north end of the walls, where we get some nice views looking
out across the rest of Carcassonne. The city has a population of about 50,000, nearly all of them
living outside the walls. We are approaching the end of this part of the walk as we arrive
back at the castle., w we're walking through some foundations and arches that used to hold up one
of the banquet rooms of the castle. It's a heavy medieval kind of gothic architecture with those
pointed arches., s we have reached an extremely elaborate part of the wall with very tall stone
walls and pointed Gothic arches. It's a battlement that's connecting the outer wall with the castle,
because up above is where the Lord of the manor was living. It had to be very well protected.
One branch of the path now goes down the hill, so let's have a look from below, back at the castle.
It is a classic viewpoint, but back in 2018, something unusual happened. A modern
art installation by the Swiss artist Felice Varini, called Eccentric Concentric Circles.
It's gone now. Here's how that castle view normally looks.
So when you're in Carcassonne Old Town, you also want to go visit the new town. And you
can get there by going right out the gate. It's the Aude gate, and there's a walkway that takes
you down a 15-minute walk into the new town. It's not so new. It was built in the 1300s. Go down,
left turn, that is so nice. This Aude gate is quite a spectacular medieval intersection,
criss crossing lanes and tall stone walls. The view of the castle as you come down the path is
spectacular and it gets better and better as you walk along. It's a very easy walk downhill and you
immediately get some beautiful views looking back up at the castle and the walled fortification of
the Old Town. Many visitors stay at hotels in the new town, which has many more accommodations than
the Old Town. And so they'll be walking this route just to get up the hill to see the Old Town. So
the castle makes a perfect background for a group shot from the bridge across the Aude river. That's
one of many reasons that we've come down. Nice view along the Aude river as well -- a bunch of
ducks swimming there and people are fishing. We're walking across a very old stone bridge
and into the new town. It's very easy to find your way to the main street, the Rue de Verdun.
You'll notice this is not a pedestrian zone. It's a main thoroughfare, and yet how narrow,
there's only one lane. There are nice sidewalks and barriers to protect the pedestrian and from
the automobiles going by. And we'll see in a moment. There are some lovely pedestrian
lanes in the new town. But this Rue de Verdun is a wonderful street. It's got creperies,
it's got bars, cafes, shops, and it will lead you to the new town's main square, Place Carnot.
Here's how it looks on an average day, a lovely tree-shaded spot with outdoor tables
and restaurants around it. But three times a week, an amazing transformation happens.
"There's a produce market down in the center of the new town, the Bastide, it's called, at Place
Carnot, and it happens every Tuesday morning, Thursday morning and Saturday morning, especially
big on Saturday morning. We're here on a Thursday morning and it's fruits and vegetables.,
so-called modern side. Actually, this part of town was built back in the 13th century
by King Louis, Saint Louis. He's considered one of the greatest heroes in the nation's past. He
built up the Bastide, it's called. Oh, they've got some great restaurants around that town square.
Well, this has been the economic center of the region. In fact, it's still the capital
of the region. And they were really noted for production of fabric, back in the13th century,
14th, 15th centuries even. And then the main focus shifted to production of. Wine.
So the Bastide, the lower town, also had a wall around. It dates back to the 1300 through 1400s,
just like the old Town up on the hill of Carcassonne.They've got the gateway and
the original wall still standing. There's a broad tree-six lined boulevard just outside the wall as
we walk along, has an underground parking garage hidden away as well. So you can see there is much
more to Carcassonne than just the Old Town. This new town is quite attractive in its own right.
One of its main lanes is just for pedestrians, with lots of shops and restaurants along it.
You'll also find some lovely parks with fountains and statues, making this new town a fine place to
visit and stay for a while. And it has a supply of hotels that would make a good accommodations for
your visit. Near the train station on the edge of town, you'll find a beautiful waterway, the Canal
du Midi. It was built in the 17th century, linking the Atlantic with the Mediterranean,
and used to transport goods and people. It's a UNESCO World Heritage site now, used by pleasure
boaters and tourists for excursions along its 360 kilometers. The locks are used to raise and lower
the water level of the canal, to allow boats to navigate easily, attracting a lot of visitors
making a boat journey. "We're going to stay the night here and go have a look at the castle."
The canal has 328 structures along its length, including locks, aqueducts, bridges, spillways
and tunnels. And you can sign up for a one or two hour round-trip excursion from Carcassonne. Now
we're heading back up the hill to the Old Town, and it's just going to take us another 15 minutes.
We cross the same bridge, have another view of the river. And here's a side view of that very old
stone bridge. And this is the simple route we're taking just from the main town square back up
across the river and up the hill. And here we get some more lovely views of the fortress itself.
"They had a fortified walkway that came down from the Old Town, you see here,
with the walls on both sides of it. That enabled them to walk down to the river
and get some more water and be protected at the same time from any sort of attack,
any ambush that might spring up." Looking down on that same structure from above,
we can see clearly how all the sides are fortified with crenellations and walkways for the defenders.
Of course they have water supply up in the town, but more often they would also come down to the
river to get even more water and also just to walk down into the lower town as well. That
way everything was protected throughout, and the lower town had a wall around it as well.
You can't really walk up there nowadays. It's a dead end, doesn't go anywhere,
but it's nice to look at it from down below. We still have our ticket for the castle,
which allows us to go back inside again because now we want to take you into the historical
museum. It's a relatively small museum, with five main galleries, so it's quite easy to walk through
and enjoy different time periods extending from the ancient Roman up into the Gothic period.
And it's like being back in the Middle Ages. You walk from one room to the next. The arcade
room has a gothic window frame as well as these architectural fragments of columns,
and the next room over is called the Round Room because of the barrel vaulted ceiling,
and the next room over is called the Romanesque room, and there is a wash basin that dates back to
the 12th century. More architectural fragments. Here's a wonderful model of the castle itself
and a statue of the man who restored Carcassonne and many of the other historic towns of France,
Viollet-le-Duc. And these were the actual living spaces back in the 14th century, 15th century,
when this was home to the Lord of the manor. There’s a wonderful exhibit with a series of
Gothic fragments from architecture. They've got some statues. It's just an astonishing place.
This is really a medieval experience and makes it well worth your trip to come down to the
city of Carcassonne, and spend some time touring through the Old Town and especially entering into
the castle. It's believed that this castle was first built from about the year 1130,
which puts it deep into the Middle Ages, and then it was occupied for hundreds of years. You're free
to walk around inside the castle and explore the various rooms, some of the staircases, and
you'll get nice views looking out the windows and from the walkways along the wall all around the
different sides of the castle. Just being in the structure itself is perhaps even more interesting
than looking at the artifacts that it contains. You see the front gateway. It forms a barbican
that defended the front door of the castle. This time we're going out in the evening and we're
going back down to the new town at night. That's a different scene at night, especially on a slightly
drizzly night. The market square is empty, but the local folks are out passing by the fine art museum
on one of the big squares, it's closed at night, back through this same wall. We're retracing our
steps in the evening in order to get this view. Oh, this is one of the most spectacular sights in
all of Carcassonne, the view of the castle from outside, and especially at twilight.
So you really want to make it a point to get down and get this view. You don't have to walk all the
way to the new town if you don't want to. You can just walk simply down the path for about 5
minutes and look back up, or at least 10 minutes over to the bridge across the river, and you will
be rewarded with one of the great views of Europe. So hold your camera steady and get a good shot.
We've come full circle in the program now it's 24 hours later. We're back out o the street with
another early morning walk. Nice to get up and out, especially in a beautiful village like this.
Starting out for a little reconnaissance walk early in the morning before the hotel even
serves breakfast. A very sleepy village at this hour. Here's the central crossroads. On the main
street of Carcassonne, so early in the morning, it's just before 8 a.m., and the shops haven't
opened yet. Interesting to come out for an early morning walk. We've really enjoyed this day at the
Best Western Le Donjon hotel, right in the heart of the fortified village at a reasonable price.
There's also a youth hostel available right inside the fortified walls.
So there's three small hotels and a youth hostel. Breakfast is included in the price of
your room and nearly all European hotels, so it makes a good start for the day and our friendly
breakfast lady is setting out those delicious croissants, you've got coffee and cereals,
some fruits. It's a nice time to chat with your fellow travelers, catch up on what happened last
night and get ready for the day ahead. There are three hotels inside the walls. The most deluxe
of these hotels is certainly the Hotel de la Cite -- a wonderful garden out back, there's
a restaurant that has a Michelin star where you can actually enjoy an affordable, delicious lunch,
even if you're not a guest. It's on the site of the former Archbishop's Palace in a beautiful
mansion that was constructed at the beginning of the 20th century. And now to conclude, our
visit with a rapid fire history of Carcassonne. The Roman Empire fell, the Visigoths took over,
the Franks came in, the Muslims invaded, but stayed just for a few decades. A thousand years
ago, the Trencavel Viscount dynasty gained control and stayed for two hundred years. In the early
13th century, Carcassonne became a stronghold of a Christian religious sect called the Cathars.
They were considered heretics by the church in Rome, because Cathars had their own sacraments
and they did not believe that Jesus was sent to bring redemption to the human race. These
Cathar beliefs were not acceptable to the church, and so Pope innocent, the third
recalled his crusaders from the Holy Land to go and fight against his own kindred. The crusading
army forced the citizens to surrender and leave their city. And from that point on, it was all
France all the time. By 1700, Carcassonne lost its strategic position guarding the border with Spain,
which was moved further south. Their main industry became manufacturer of textiles,
which later failed after competition from abroad, and the place began to decline. People moved out,
the buildings began to fall down. French government decided to demolish the whole thing
in the mid-19th-century, but the people reacted. A conservation movement grew and it was rescued,
renovated and rebuilt. Tourists began to arrive and enjoy it early in the 20th century,
and since then its popularity has constantly grown, with currently over 2 million visitors
in the average year, the second most popular historic monument in France after Mt-San-Michel,
becoming one of the world's great historic sites. Our big challenge for this day is getting
out of town and moving along to the next city on our itinerary. We frequently upload new movies,
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