Cathar Country

The Cathar Castle`s of Peyrepertuse, Queribus, Montsegur and (of course) Carcassonne are just amazing. The excellent food, which is unbelievable...and inexpensive.

Quick Tips:

Take a plug adaptor - you won`t find one once you get there (believe me... we tried everywhere). Take a travel iron or buy a 20 Euro`s iron there if you need to iron your clothes - the hotel we stayed at didn`t supply an iron. They did have a hair-dryer, but it didn`t have a diffuser for my wife.

Best Way To Get Around:

Hire a car. Definitely hire a car, unless you plan on staying in Carcassonne for the whole trip.

The double room we stayed in was 36 Euro`s per night (about £25). If you`re after luxury go somewhere else. If you believe a hotel room should be a comfortable place to sleep and make your base of travel, then this hotel is excellent. It`s a 10 minute walk from the medievil walled city of Carcassonne, and two minutes walk from the new city (which is only a little younger than the medievil city... more on that later).

Take your own iron if you need one, and diffuser for a hair dryer if you need that as well.

Our room had a comfortable double-bed, a couple of cupboards/wardrobes, tv, bathroom (shower, toilet, bidet). It was a bit tight in the bedroom but we think hotels are just for sleeping in.

There is parking at this hotel, and Claude is a very nice, helpful lady who speaks a fair amount of English. Mimi is the hotel cat who will normally be found lazing about on one of the downstairs chairs.

If you want breakfast or anything the prices are reasonable (5 euro`s pp) and the food good and fresh that morning from the patisserie.

An excellent hotel at an excellent location.

WoW! That pretty much sums up the French food we sampled.

Firstly, a couple of things we think are good idea`s that the French do....
- They serve you a free water jug at every meal (even if you just have a starter). This is so you don`t have to drink a coffee or anything and ruin/change the taste of the food. Excellent idea... save the coffee for after you`ve eaten.
- Presentation. Even with the cheapest meal , they will present it beuatifully. Amazingly, it really does make the meal taste better.

Our first snack was in a cafe in medievil Carcassonne itself, and the staff were very friendly. We just needed a coffee and a snack. After our coffee (yeah I know, we should have had that later), we ordered a couple of starters for less than five Euro`s each, and they were amazing - the taste, the presentation.

Near Peyrepertuse we had a pizza each. For around eight Euro`s you get a HUGE pizza absolutley brimming with toppings...totally what you don`t get in England. Amazing taste and baked in a proper oven, with some charcoal left on the base. Brilliant.

On the way back from the Grotte l`Aguzou (heading towards Axat), we stopped at a restaurant in the middle of nowhere (as alot seem to be out in Languedoc country). It was amazing. Marie Therese is the owner, waitress, chef, and cleaner - very, very hard working. The menu was set at either 13 or 16 Euro`s for a three course meal. As we were watching our pennies we went for the 13 Euro meal, not expecting too much. As we didn`t know what the dishes said, we played restaurant roullette and picked out things for each other.

When Marie brought the food out we were gobsmacked! Perfectly presented as if we were in a mega-rich restaurant, the taste was sensational of every course - and unbelievable value! My courses were a large grapefruit cut in half, with warmed honey dripped over it. Mandyleigh had a HUGE tasty salad with meats. For the main meal mine turned out to be two large whole fish which were amazing - they looked deep-fried a little but weren`t oily on the inside - so I`m guessing they must have been grilled first. For dessert we both had a selection of `tartes` - different flavoured homemade cakes with custard.

Seriously, I`m not really into food at all, just as happy with some cornflakes as anything else, but the food in France really blew me away. My only negative point on French cooking is that they don`t like spicy food (which I love), so don`t expect too much in the way of curries or chillies.

Quribus and Peyrepertuse are definitely the first ones to visit. You can get a pass to all the Cathar attractions which may work out cheaper if you visit five or more, or just pay around four Euro`s individually per person. We paid separately, as we only had time enough to visit a few.

Queribus and Peyrepertuse are very near each other, just north of Maud on the D117. We had our first afternoon visiting these two. We left late morning and it took about an hour and a half to drive there from Carcassonne (going south to Limoux and turning left at Quillan towards Perpignan). You`ll be amazed by the scenery on the way there.

Queribus doesn`t look that exciting from the outside, but once you make your way up the mountain to the castle there`s alot more going on inside, including a spectacular column, arches, and tower. The views from all of the Cathar castles are amazing.

When researching for this trip, I`d read that Peyrepertuse was the most impressive ruin, and they were right. Quite amazing, like an offset three-tiered wedding cake stuck on top of a boat-shaped mountain. On the very top level we were slightly above the clouds that were rolling through, and they went through ourselves as well. So we had our heads in the clouds that afternoon!

The next day those same clouds were chucking the rain down, but we went to Montsegur anyway. One person on the net said it wasn`t worth the 30 minute climb, but I`m not so sure. If you don`t know and aren`t interested in the history of the place then probably not....and you`d also think Stonehenge is just a bunch of big rocks ruining the countryside. I didn`t know how I`d feel about it, but when we got there and braved some of the rain to walk up to the monument for the 225 Cathars who were burned at the stake there, the power of the place really hit me. It`s not about the rocks - it`s about the events that happened there - so the `Rough Guides` book to Languedoc was right. It`s a powerful place because of the events and your imagination. Unfortunately for us it was raining too much for us to get to the castle itself, but it was worth the long drive just to be there for me. Wish we had bought an umbrella though.

Carcassonne is generally made up of two cities - the medieval city on the hill where the Cathars were assaulted by the Catholics in the 12th century, and the city below the medieval one.

The city below is there because after the Catholics conquered Carcassonne, the original inhabitants of the city wanted to put their people back in charge of the city sometime later (peacefully), but the French (catholic) King said basically "if you`re gonna be like that then you can stuff off and live in the valley".

So he banished them from the city and they had to build their town outside of it`s walls, which is where the `new` city started, and has been built up over the centuries, so the oldest buidlings are the ones nearest the medieval walled city.

Medieval Carcassonne is the only inhabited medieval walled city in the world. It was renovated in the 18th century by a French history and architect buff, who got a couple of things historically wrong when fixing the city up. The spires on top of the towers are grey pointy ones, whereas the originals would have been pink flat ones, and the castle also didn`t have the arrow slits until it was renovated. Apart from that though, the city is pretty much as it would have looked 800 years ago.

Except now there are different sorts of shops, and electricity. Oh, and also people driving cars round it (the ones that live there).... nearly running down the tourists.

The shops are excellent if you have any spare dosh.... mostly jewellery, clothes, food, and tourist stuff. There are a few cash machines around if you run low (which you will after seeing some of the stuff on offer).

It`s an amazing city, and the only bit you`d have to pay to see is the central castle itself. We didn`t do that this time, as the city itself is more than enough to spend a day looking at. Make sure you stay in the evening as well if you like taking photos - it`s all lit up by huge lights at night. Take some photos from `Pont Neuf` (new bridge) for some excellent views.

This city is the one featured in the movie Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves (Kevin Costner), though I can`t remember it. Will have to rent it out again soon and endure the American accents in Medieval English clothes.

Carcassonne is truly one of the best places in the world to visit if you`re into either castles or history. Nowhere else can I think of actually taking you back to what life must have been a bit like in the middle-ages. From the cobbled stone streets and alleys, to the huge well and the (mostly) original battlements and hidden areas.

We`ll definitely be going back.

If you`re from a left-lane country like the U.K or Australia... BE VERY CAREFUL.

On the way out of the airport in the hire car I remember which lane I should go to (the right lane), but I forgot to look at the left lane where oncoming traffic is...I was bloody lucky no one was coming when I pulled out. So don`t be as stupid as me. And make sure you look and give way to the left at roundabouts. It`ll take a couple of hours to get used to the gearstick being on the right as well.

Stick to the lane near the curb if you`re slower than anyone else, it`s the slow lane, and the other is the overtaking lane.

If you go on the motorway, you have to pick up a ticket on entry and pay a toll wherever you exit. It cost us eight Euro`s to get from Carcassonne to Perpignan (about an hour`s drive). Yikes.

We hired our car through Auto-Europe, which cost £64 for three days hire of a small car. As our flight was leaving at 4:50pm on the Thursday, I booked the car from 2:30pm Monday to 2:30pm Thursday. If it had been over 2:30 they would have charged for an extra day, which isn`t worth it for an extra hour or so. When you pick up your car, they take your card to prepare a deposit in case you trash the car. It shows up as hundreds of Euro`s on the receipt, but don`t worry... they don`t take it out of your account if the car is ok.

Take some tapes to listen to if you don`t like the French radio. You won`t be able to hear much of the radio when driving though the Pyrenees end of Languedoc anyway.

Going up the mountains you won`t need to get out of second and third gears... the lanes are narrow and the French have a bad habit of cutting corners on the bends approaching you.

You won`t need anything but the car in second gear and your feet on the clutch and brake on the way down the mountains... ALOT of brake!