{"id":2539,"date":"2023-12-30T19:25:58","date_gmt":"2023-12-30T19:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2539"},"modified":"2023-12-30T19:25:58","modified_gmt":"2023-12-30T19:25:58","slug":"carcassonne-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=2539","title":{"rendered":"Carcassonne"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Middle Ages always had an attraction for us when we were kids.\u00a0 Knights, damsels in distress, jousts and big feasts in castles halls just seemed so wondrous.\u00a0 Robin Hood, El Cid, and Joan of Arc were our heroes and the Sherriff of Nottingham was the evil villain.\u00a0 Later in life, Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt (both the Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branaugh versions) thrilled us yet again.\u00a0 If you were anything like us, you ought to take a trip to Carcassonne when you\u2019re wine tasting in southwest France.<\/p>\n

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Carcassonne viewed from afar.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of European Waterways.<\/em><\/p>\n

As you drive up to the town, you\u2019ll see this magnificent walled city on a hilltop.\u00a0 There is a modern-day town surrounding the castle, but it\u2019s of no particular interest.\u00a0 It\u2019s the imagery of battles and courtly love that will rush back into your mind as soon as you see Carcassonne.\u00a0 And it\u2019s real<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Well, almost real.\u00a0 There was a walled town there in the Middle Ages and it did figure in some significant battles, particularly in the Albigensian Crusade, that pitted the Papacy versus the Cathars.\u00a0 (The Pope won.)\u00a0 But by the early 1800\u2019s, the town and its castle had fallen into disrepair and was going to be torn down.<\/p>\n

Then along came Eug\u00e8ne Viollet-le-Duc.\u00a0 He was a French architect, a visionary and someone who must have had the same childhood fantasies we did.\u00a0 He set about restoring great medieval buildings, not least of which was the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.\u00a0 When he turned his attention to Carcassonne, he took what was still a military stronghold and turned it into a Middle Ages wonderland.<\/p>\n

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The lovingly restored Basilique de St-Nazaire.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.<\/em><\/p>\n

For today\u2019s visitor, there\u2019s no reason to concern yourself that Viollet-le-Duc wasn\u2019t exactly archeologically correct in restoring Carcassonne.\u00a0 If what we see today isn\u2019t exactly as it was, it is what it should have been.\u00a0 Soaring walls, towers with arrow slits for the archers, tessellated ramparts, inns (well, they\u2019re really restaurants) where you can quaff your ale (or enjoy a glass of wine).\u00a0 They\u2019re all there in Carcassonne.<\/p>\n

Entry to the old town is free, but parking isn\u2019t.\u00a0 And if you get there at any reasonable hour, you\u2019ll find the nearest empty lots are quite a walk away.\u00a0 Of course, that gives you the chance to approach the great walls and turrets slowly and take them in at leisure.\u00a0 Once inside, you\u2019ll find a whole town\u2019s worth of genuine medieval buildings, buffed up and gleaming.\u00a0 Unfortunately, you\u2019ll also find the usual run of shops selling knickknacks, tee shirts and junk.\u00a0 But you\u2019ll also encounter bookstores with a considerable collection of material on the Middle Ages and the events that have occurred around Carcassonne.\u00a0 Many are in French, but enough are translated to keep you interested.<\/p>\n

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You can walk the walls of Carcassonne.<\/em><\/p>\n

We recommend that you pay the fee to tour the walls around the city.\u00a0 It\u2019s not too hard to imagine hordes of English troops approaching from afar and the sturdy Carcassonais defending their fortifications.\u00a0 By the way, those enemy troops might also have been French, because Carcassonne was part of Spain in medieval times.\u00a0 You should also see the Basilique de St- Nazaire, begun in the 11th<\/sup> Century.\u00a0 It\u2019s fine gothic architecture, suitably embellished by Viollet-le-Duc.<\/p>\n

If you ever dreamed over Prince Valiant on a Sunday morning, you\u2019ll love Carcassonne.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Middle Ages always had an attraction for us when we were kids.\u00a0 Knights, damsels in distress, jousts and big feasts in castles halls just seemed so wondrous.\u00a0 Robin Hood, El Cid, and Joan of Arc were our heroes and the Sherriff of Nottingham was the evil villain.\u00a0 Later in life, Henry V at the … Continue reading Carcassonne<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2539"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2543,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539\/revisions\/2543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}