The journey continues…

From Paris I needed to head west to start thinking about entering Spain. I didn´t really have a plan how to get to Portugal and was just assuming I´d figure it out on the way, what a debacle that turned out to be… but that´s a story for a different time. There´s a few places to cover before Spain.

    La Rochelle

I took the train from the Montparnasse station in Paris to La Rochelle. I didn´t know anything about it but it was alot closer to Spain and I figured it would be a big enough place to get a connection to Irun (just over the Spanish border). I was wrong, it was a reasonably small place on the coast which was a popular tourist destination but not a major travel hub. I spent a fantastic three nights on a camp site here using my tent for the first time.

A few things you should know about setting up a tent:

  • Always, always, set it on flat ground. Make sure when your looking at your plot that you check the area for the flattest bit. I spent three nights sliding towards the entrance to the tent on my sleeping bag.
  • Always, always, check the flat surface for mislaid objects. I assumed the lumps under me were all rocks and hard ground until the second night when I discovered they were mostly left tent pegs. It was much more comfortable when I´d moved them.
  • A sleeping bag is not sufficent when used on it´s own to protect you from hard ground. Definitely bring a sleeping mat, inflatable mattress or collapsible bed.

I had totally forgotten how to camp properly in the intervening years since I last did it. Still, despite the restless sleep, it was fun being back on a camp site.

La Rochelle is an old harbour town. It was recently modernised substantially when they removed the fishing operation and pedestrianised the town centre. Now it´s full of restaurants and little souvenior shops. It´s a beautiful little place and I spent a happy few days just walking round the cramped streets and sitting on the docks watching boats come and go.

After La Rochelle, and continuing my quest for Spanish access, I went to Carcassonne. Alot further south, and in between two of the better access points to Spain, Carcassonne was an easy decision. Especially considering I wanted to see where the game came from. If you didn´t know (and most of you won´t), Carcassonne is an old strategy game that was made into an Xbox Live title.

    Carcassonne

Carcassonne is amazing, probably my favourite after Versailles. When I arrived it was still very hot and summery, but within half an hour a massive storm broke out of nowhere and suddenly torrents of rain were coming down. I spent and wet ten minutes waiting for a taxi to get to my hostel (the busses had finished earlier in the day as it was saturday). The storm got so bad that on the way to the hostel we passed a tree that had fallen in the street after being struck by lightning. It was a big tree too, it took out a couple of parked cars and was laying across half the road. Further on the driver had to skirt a massive puddle in the road, but still the water came above the base of the four wheel drive we were in. By the time I arrived at the hostel though, the rain had stopped and it started to clear up. I was staying in a little hostel run by an English woman ten kilometres from Carcassonne itself in a typical little French town called Preixan. It was called Sidsmums Travellers retreat and was basically a converted wine cellar serving as a dorm with the upstairs set out as a full kitchen and rest area. They have cabins available for rent too out the back and it´s such a nice quiet place to relax in. The lady who runs it, Jan, gave a bunch of us a lift into Carcassonne on the sunday. She doesn´t normally do this on sundays but most of us were only there for that day and it was our only oppotunity to see the city.

The modern Carcassonne is just the same as most French cities, it´s only just big enough to call it a city. With it pedestrian shopping areas, cafes and souvenir shops it´s pretty similar to most places. The jem in it´s crown though, is the fortress on the hill on the edge of the city. The original city of Carcassone sits above the town but can´t really be seen from the streets until you get to the bridge which connects the old to the new. Once on it though, you can see the Fortress in it´s entirety, it´s fairy tale spires standing out against the lighter colour of the original stone. It´s a completely original preserved fortress that´s stood there since 1209. Before that there was always a fortress on the hill since the Romans in 10BC, but it was never permenant until the 1200´s when they rebuilt the original walls with stone. The oddly contrasting Disney-esque spires weren´t added until the late 1800´s when attempts were made to restore the disused castle as an historical attraction.

Walking around inside the city it came as a great surprise to find that people were actually living in there still. I thought it was purely an attraction and that there were only shops and kiosk insided the fortress walls until I came across a family barbecue next to the entrance to the actual fort. On one side of the wall is the museum inside the fort, on the other was some gently sizzling steaks and a guy in an apron with a beer. Imagine living in a tourist attraction? I wonder at the cost of real estate in a historical fort…

Once again I got in to the pay section of the fort by being under 25 and a citizen of the EC. For your money you get to walk the inner ramparts of the fort and get inside the fort itself which has a museum. After walking round for a few hours I still had some time to kill before I was due to get picked up. This was conveniently timed as there was a reenactment of a Grand Tournament about to start which I went to see. I wasn´t really expecting much, I just thought it would waste some time before my lift arrived. It turned out to be awesome though. Everyone in the show was in character, it wasn´t just some guys jousting. It started with the introduction of the knights and the queen and then there was some falconry. The second part of the show was the four knights doing tricks. They started off hitting targets with small axes and spear as they rode past, which wasn´t that impressive. Then they took turns spearing small hoops with a lance which were held out for them. This clearly took skill, it was like that bit in A Knights Tale where they try and train Heath Ledger. After this they put a handkerchief in the dirt and each rider galloped past and picked it off the floor as they went. Everyone oohed and aahed at that. Half way through them taking turns though the bad guys turned up and that´s when the real show started. After alot of posturing by each of the contenders they jousted each other with lances that actually shattered upon contact. When they fell from the horses they would take up arms and fight until one of them won. Obviously it was all staged and the outcome plain to all, but it was still fun seeing them joust for real. I´m pretty sure the bad guys were meant to be English, even though it was all in French and I couldn´t understand what they were saying. More than once I was tempted to cheer for the bad guys. When it was done, they took their applause and left the arena doing a series of tricks on their horses, like hanging off upside down and riding out backwards.

That´s enough for now, I´ll tell you all about getting to the farm in Portugal after I´ve arrived. Hopefully it won´t be as difficult as getting to Spain turned out to be…