Carcasonne

Carcasonne

We stopped off in Carcassonne for two days, on the way to Spain.

Carcassonne has two parts to it - the new city and old city.

The old city and it's castle are completely surrounded by huge ancient walls.

We spent a day exploring the old town and castle. We took an audio guided tour around the castle, learning about it's gory history.

There were lots of precautions to make sure that no-one could break into the castle (in the olden days).

City walls, moat and drawbridge, gates that could drop on you, a murder ditch, and even if you got past all that you would still be greeted by arrows.

All of this was so effective that people soon learned that it was best NOT to attack Carcassonne.

From the castle ramparts you had a very good view of the city, old and new.

After exploring the castle we went on a boat ride down the Canal du Midi.

We were given bread to feed ducks on the way. The trip lasted for about two hours... and in this time we saw a turtle and lots of ducks.

The canal navigates it's way down from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, making it 360km long. It is a UNESCO world heritage site because it is a man made canal that was established to allow the transport of goods from one side of France to the other without going past the Spanish.

About half way through the trip, we went through a lock.

The lock is used to control the water level, as one part of the canal has a much higher water level than the other.

There are many locks located down the canal, but we only went through this one, rising just over two metres very quickly.