Last Day in Carcassonne

Shelley and I, having weathered a Saskatchewan winter with not so much as a sniffle picked up a nasty cold in Paris. That cut back on our activities in Carcassonne. No excursions to explore Cathar castles or the opportunity to sample the wine produced by the small vineyards in the Aude. WE laid low and are slowly coming back to the land of the living.

The Canal Pleasure Craft Follow the Traditional Canal Barge Look.
Shallow draft with a flat high prow.

Today we caught the local bus into the town below and explored a little bit of the Canal de Midi. Pretty amazing that someone, without the air of heavy equipment decided to build a canal connecting the Mediterranean with the Atlantic Ocean. These days it is mostly pleasure craft and rented house boats. Running from the city of Toulouse down to the Mediterranean port of Sète, the Canal du Midi is considered an extraordinary 17th century feat of engineering and has been a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1996.

The idea of building a waterway joining the Atlantic to the Med was voiced by the Romans and again by Charlemagne but it took one of Louis XIV's tax inspectors to make it come together.

We found the local market and sampled some local dried sausage and looked over the fresh vegetables. We will be so glad in a couple of stops when we can say goodbye to hotels and begin to cook our own meals, taking advantage of these markets.

Back at the Cite we wander a bit and were amazed to see with the clear visibility how the snow capped Pyrenees stood out against the sky. To top it off Shelley found a rabbit eating poppies in the grass beside the wall.

Hmmm Those red things look good

After an afternoon nap we decided an early supper was in order before we packed. We came across a neat small courtyard wine bar which was laid back and had the type of food we were looking for.
We has a bottle of Chateau Jouclary, a Cabardes. We really quite liked it.