Holiday in Transition # 8: The Time Machine

Somewhere around my tenth year I received, as a Christmas or birthday gift, a picture book about France and another in the same series about Greece.  Those books played a part in stirring up my passion for travel, a passion which has only gotten stronger as the years go by.  There was one place in particular in the book about France that I was absolutely determined to visit some day – and yesterday, “some day” finally arrived.

This adventure could hardly have been more different from the tour of the Cote d’Azur.  For one thing, I had to set my alarm to honk me awake at 5:00am because we were docking early and the tour was starting right away, even before many of the people in the ship were awake.  But of course, this being the Languedoc region in the south of France, we didn’t start precisely on time.

Our ship docked at the port town of Sete, a bustling modern centre with diverse industries.  We staggered aboard our coach in varying states of semi-wakeful drowsiness, then drove through town, out onto the motorway, and southwest for 1¾ hours to the city of Carcassonne.   

The glory of Carcassonne, and it is a unique one indeed, is an entire medieval walled city.  Yes, I know that it's stretching a point to call it "medieval".  A good deal of it was restored and “improved” by the 19^th century architect and antiquarian Eugene Viollet-le-Duc.  He was commissioned to restore the walled city, which had fallen into great disrepair.  Work began in 1853, and was still under way at the architect’s death a quarter century later.

What you see today, then, may not be strictly authentic.  No matter, to visit Carcassonne is to be transported bodily backwards into the Middle Ages.  Simply walking around the double walls with eyes wide open will give you a multi-layered course in the history of the art of fortification, from the time of the Romans forward for over a thousand years into the 15^th Century.  No wonder, then, that UNESCO has certified the ancient walled city as a World Heritage Site.  It’s a virtual time machine.

And if you really want to annoy people, you can always buy a guidebook and memorize the proper names of every single tower and barbican in the outer and inner walls, and the Ducal Castle!

We were fortunate to have a guide who obviously knew the subject backwards, and had a great knack for giving us “just enough” detail in order to fill in the picture and bring the old place to life, without overwhelming us with far too much of a good thing.

The ancient walled city covers a sizable amount of ground on top of a steep hill overlooking the River Aude and the modern city.  Here’s an aerial photo taken from the internet to give you an impression.

We entered through the east “Narbonnaise” gate at the left side of that aerial photo.

From there, our guide took us on a circuit between the inner and outer walls of the fortified city, pointing out details like the remaining Roman stonework…

…and brickwork. 

In both cases, the wall was somehow built downwards under the older work when the ground between the walls was levelled in the Middle Ages.  We also took in the views down the steep northern and western faces of the hill below the walls.

We then entered the city by the west gate, pausing for a moment by an old house certainly used by the Inquisition in 1233, and possibly even the place where the Inquisition first began.  This was during the time of the Catharist or Albigensian heretical schism in the Roman Catholic Church. 

As we climbed higher into the city, it became obvious, although our guide did point out the fact, that most of the houses surrounding us were in fact of 19^th Century design, dating from the period of Viollet-le-Duc’s restoration work on the fortress walls and towers.  It also became obvious, even without the guide saying so, that most of the place is now a gigantic tourist trap of shops and restaurants, and even a few hotels and inns, and replete (even on an out-of-season weekend) with costumed performers roaming the streets and staging mock swordfights, jousts, etc.  On the other hand, the irregular and steeply sloping cobbled streets are unquestionably the genuine article.

And there are a few older buildings around.  There’s the Ducal Castle, built within the fortress in the 1300s after the Languedoc came officially under the rule of the Kings of France in Paris.  According to our guide, it was not built to hold off enemies from without but rather to protect the King’s envoy from the people of the city who were definitely not thrilled to have lost their independence!  I’d be inclined to agree because the Castle backs right up against the city’s outer walls, which it certainly would not do if external foes were the greatest fear.

There’s this beautiful example of an old medieval half-timbered house, French style.

The former Bishop’s palace is now a very high-end hotel and restaurant.

And the crown jewel of the place is the Basilica (formerly a Cathedral) of St-Nazaire.  Begun in the Romanesque style of the south...

...it was completed with a high Gothic transept and chancel after the Bishop was given a fragmentary relic of the Crown of Thorns for which the famous Sainte-Chapelle was built in Paris by the King.  The resemblance to the Sainte-Chapelle within the chancel of St-Nazaire, although on a much more modest scale, is unmistakable.

After visiting the Basilica, we adjourned to one of the restaurants for lunch, which came supported at each table by an included bottle of a smooth, delicious local wine.

At that point, sadly, we had to return to our coach and drive back into the 21^st Century at Sete.  I would have gladly stayed for a few more hours to tour the castle, and walk around the circuit of the walls (the only area for which you have to pay an entrance fee).  But that’s the curse of the guided tour: there’s never enough time.