Cathar Castles and Cassoulet

One of my travel goals for my time in Lyon is to see as many regions of France as possible. I've been making good progress, visiting Saint Malo and Mount Saint Michel, the Chateau de Chambord, Strasbourg, Annecy, Mount Moucherotte and Vienne, Montpellier, Avignon, and, of course, Paris. Continuing on my quest to experience the different parts of "L'Hexagon," a few weekends ago I snuck away from Lyon to visit a corner of France that I hadn't had a chance to explore yet: the southwest.

Besides seeing a new region, I had another motivation to go on this particular trip...Drew! He had a few days free before heading to Barcelona and Lisbon with a couple classmates for the rest of his spring break, so we decided to spend the weekend in Toulouse and Carcassonne. Their location in the foothills of the Pyrenees, which mark the border between Spain and France, made for the perfect meeting spot.
 

Weekend getaway from Lyon (center-right of France) to Toulouse and Carcassonne (lower-left of France)

Toulouse

Having flown in from London a few hours before I was scheduled to arrive, Drew was waiting for me on the platform at the train station (just like in a movie!). After we dropped off my bag, we spent the rest of the afternoon meandering through the cobblestone streets, exploring the city. We especially loved the architecture in Toulouse. Unlike the other French cities I've visited, most of the buildings were constructed using red bricks, which gave everything a pinkish glow -- hence the city's nickname, the "Rose City." 

Saint Sernin Basilica

Hanging out on the steps by the river

After the sun sank below the horizon, Drew, Elaine and Alice (two of his friends who had decided to join us for the weekend en route to Barcelona), and I headed back to our apartment to regroup before dinner.

We had made a dinner reservation at a restaurant called Chez Navarre after Elaine and I had happened upon the same glowing newspaper review. The neat thing about the restaurant is that you sit at communal tables and help yourself (aka no table service) to whatever is being offered on the day's pre-set menu. Bear with me as I lovingly describe this meal in great detail...

When we arrived, the hostess led us to (our half of) a table, already laden with bowls of lentils, herring, picked vegetables, and several other appetizers. She helped us select a local wine, pouring us generous tastes of three of her favorites so we could make an informed decision. With that important item out of the way, we happily dug into the dishes before us, taking turns getting up to slice ourselves fresh bread and ladle out bowlfuls of creamy watercress soup.

From there we moved on to the main course, scooping up boeuf bourgignon and rice from the large pots simmering away on a buffet table nearby. Whenever I think of boeuf bourgignon I think about the scene from "Julie and Julia" where Amy Adams falls asleep and burns the stew that she had spent all day making. Luckily this one was NOT burned...it was rich and melt-in-your-mouth delicious!

The last course was the dessert course. Surveying the myriad options at the "grand buffet de desserts," including chocolate mouse, apple compote, creme brulée, prunes, a few types of cheese (traditionally dessert in French meals), and more, we carefully selected a little bit of each to taste. After our three-hour meal, we were all totally stuffed but totally content.

On Saturday morning, we started with a stroll through one of the open air produce markets, where we admired stand after stand of beautiful fruits and vegetables. I was thrilled to find blood oranges, which are like normal oranges but are a deep purple-red color and sweeter, and we bought a bunch to snack on over the course of the weekend. (Side note: They've since started popping up at the markets in Lyon...so exciting!)

Next, we wandered through the Victor Hugo covered market, sampling cheeses along the way. We were looking for something a bit more substantial for breakfast (or really lunch at that point) than a pastry or some fruit, so we ended up picking up sandwiches, pastries, and a good loaf of bread from a bakery that our Airbnb host had recommended. We enjoyed the sandwiches in the sun in a pretty square across the street, stashing the pastries and the loaf of bread for later.

Before starting our sight-seeing in earnest, we had one more important item to take care of: finding macarons. It was Alice's first trip to France, and she was on a mission to find some good ones. At our host's recommendation, we picked up about a dozen macarons at Au Poisson Bleu to savor over the next day and a half. I've eaten my fair share of macarons since I arrived in France, but those were some of the best I've tasted!

From there, we headed to the St. Augustine cloister, an abbey-turned-museum. The group that had shared our table at Chez Navarre had highly recommended we go, and they didn't steer us wrong. The cloister had a surprisingly impressive art and artifacts collection organized around a beautiful courtyard in the center.

 

Modern exhibit with the pedestals from three ancient churches in Toulouse

After spending some time in the museum, we quickly walked through the Saint-Etienne Cathedral and the old book market in the adjacent square before taking an afternoon pastry break. (Toulouse was definitely a food-filled weekend!) From there, we went over to the Jacobin Church, which we had spotted too late the afternoon before to visit. The inside of the church was pretty, and the decorations were unique. I particularly liked the pattern on the walls, which seemed to be Moroccan-inspired, and the mirrored platform that had been installed to allow visitors to get a good look over the soaring aches without craning their necks. The Jacobin Church also has a cloister, so we strolled around our second cloister of the day. (As a side note, the Jacobin Church was apparently founded with the goal of combating the spread of Catharism, which I talk more about below.)

Admiring the ceiling architecture in the mirror!

It was late in the afternoon by the time we finished our little church tour of Toulouse, but we still had another two to three hours of daylight to play with. Drew and I really wanted to rent bikes and ride along the canal (Elaine and Alice gamely decided to join us), so we went in search of a bike-share station near the trail. We had two interesting experiences along the way.

First, after noticing more and more security cars, we came to an intersection that had been blocked off to cars and saw at least 100-200 CRS personnel (basically French anti-riot police) milling around. They all looked pretty relaxed and they weren't stopping pedestrians, so we kept walking past them, but eventually our curiosity got the best of us and we stopped to ask what was going on. Apparently, they were there to make sure that a march in support of International Women's Day didn't get out of hand. Isn't there something very...odd...about having a couple hundred male officers in anti-riot gear surrounding a peaceful protest in support of women's right to independence, safety, etc.? No, just me?

Second, as we walked through some smaller residential roads, hunting for a bike-share station with enough bikes docked for all four of us, we came upon a small neighborhood Carnival celebration! It was fun to see a local, family-friendly event with lots of people in costumes chanting and singing.

After two attempts to rent bikes were foiled, Alice and Elaine threw in the towel and opted to go shopping instead. Drew and I persevered, thankfully finding a third station that worked. We didn't have long before sunset, so we went for a short but sweet ride along the bank of the river, through a park (until the park guards informed us it was a bike-free zone -- oops!), and finally along the canal. We had a perfect breeze to keep us cool, and we saw another striking sunset as we pedaled our way back towards the town center.

Sunset bike-ride

Having worked up an appetite and eager to taste some typical Southwestern dishes while we were in Toulouse, we headed to dinner at La P'Tite Gouaille. We ordered cassoulet, roasted duck, and baked Camembert. Actually, only the first two were truly regional specialties (Camembert comes from Normandy in northern France), but we couldn't resist! We also had some pretty tasty desserts at the end, including a crazy concoction not unlike a banana split. It wasn't the lightest meal we'd ever had, but the most delicious ones rarely are!

Drew got the cassoulet, a very typical southwestern French dish

 

Dessert monster

We woke up early Sunday morning to give ourselves a little more time to explore before catching a train to Carcassonne for the afternoon. In particular, we wanted to see a few of the markets that we'd heard about. The flea market by the St. Sernin Basilica left something to be desired, but we really liked the second market we found, which had all kinds of food as well as soaps, crafts, and other small things. Violets are very popular in Toulouse, and I bought some violet-scented black tea as an edible souvenir. I'm actually drinking some right now as I write this post...it smells amazing!

Markets explored, we headed to the train station for our next stop!

Carcassonne

Both castle lovers, Drew and I couldn't help but add a little side trip to the Cité de Carcassonne, which is only about 40 minutes away from Toulouse. The fortified city/castle, which was labeled a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997, has a fascinating history. In particular, it is considered to be one of the "Cathar Castles," in reference to a strain of Christianity called Catharism. 

The term "Cathar Castles" is a bit of a misnomer because it makes it sound like the Cathars were building castles. Instead, it refers to castles owned by nobility who tried to protect Cathars living on their lands. Basically, the Cathars arrived in Europe at some point in the 12th century, and they developed a significant presence in southwest France, particularly in the Languedoc region. Although they considered themselves Christians, their teachings in many ways conflicted with the Catholic Church, which was very powerful at the time. After trying and failing to convert the Cathars to Catholicism, Pope Innocent III got fed up and declared a crusade (the Albigensian Crusade) on these heretics in the early 1200s, determined to wipe them out. The nobility living in the Languedoc region offered refuge to the Cathars in their castles and fortified towns. But after the French in the north, eager to take over land in the south, joined in support of the Pope, the strongholds gradually fell and many thousands of Cathars were murdered. As a result of this Crusade and then later the Inquisition, the Cathars were largely wiped out and no longer exist today. (Source: http://www.catharcastles.info/)

We were determined to see Carcassonne, even if we only had a few hours to spend there. After taking the train from Toulouse Sunday morning, the four of us stashed our bags at a hotel with a luggage room and hurried over to check out the fortress. Our first glimpses blew us away!

First glimpse from across the river

 

We walked all around the little town inside the ancient city walls and then followed an audio tour of the actual chateau, the "Count's Castle." We learned a ton about the history of Carcassonne, particularly about its Cathar history and its defense system. Strategically located, Carcassonne was the subject of many sieges throughout history, which is part of the reason why it was so heavily fortified. It has a double set of stone walls, numerous watch towers, a drawbridge, and other protective features...pretty intense! After the treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, however, Carcassonne lost its military and strategic importance, and the city was more or less abandoned and fell into disrepair. In the mid-1800s the French government actually planned to raze the whole thing, but after a local uproar, they ended up restoring it instead.
 

 

Goodbye castle selfie! #wereallyneedaselfiestick

We only had about four hours at the castle, but it was definitely worth the trip. We were totally blown away! 

Saying goodbye to Carcassonne, we headed back to the train station to continue to our respective destinations. We had a few extra minutes together on the train until Drew, Elaine, and Alice got off at Narbonne to switch to their train to Barcelona. I continued on a few more stops to Béziers, where I caught a rideshare the rest of the way back to Lyon. Overall, it was a wonderful weekend in Southwestern France!

The Pearl of the Adriatic

It's taken me forever to get this post up, but I blame it on the fact that the internet in my apartment was working only intermittently the last several days. My landlord left for another trip yesterday without having time to contact our cable provider, so it fell to me to address the problem. It's a pain dealing with internet issues at home, but in French? Oy. But I called the company today and successfully managed to fix the problem. Hooray!

Anyway, back to Croatia. After Plitvice National Park and Split, the rest of our itinerary looked like this:

• Arrive in Zagreb in evening; spend 1 night
• Plitvice National Park en route to Split; spend 2 nights in Split
• Travel to Dubrovnik; spend 4 nights in Dubrovnik
• Fly to Zagreb; spend 1 night
• Explore Zagreb; head to the airport for our flights home

After a somewhat uneasy second night in Split, Jessie and I caught a bus to Dubrovnik around noon on Tuesday. It was another long trip, but we didn't mind because the scenery was spectacular. We spent the four-ish hours gaping at the incredible views of the coastline as they unfolded around each curve!

The view from the rest stop mid-trip. Too bad photos through bus windows never come out!

Dubrovnik
Arriving in Dubrovnik iust before sunset, we spent some time relaxing and getting settled in before strolling down to the Old City to get dinner.

Juice and wafer cookies from our hosts + sunset views from the balcony. Hello, Dubrovnik!

First views of the Old City walls on the way to dinner

The main street within the Old City walls at night

Delicious dinner at a Bosnian/Turkish restaurant our first night in Dubrovnik

Jessie and I had been a little hesitant to come to Croatia in February since we'd read that it's often rainy along the coast in the winter, but we totally lucked out. Waking up on Wednesday morning, we opened the blinds to a bright blue, cloud-free sky. Thrilled to have such perfect weather for exploring, we practically skipped down to the historic part of the city to get started!

Taking in the view from our balcony our first morning!

Entering the Old City from the far gate

After a quick stroll within the city walls to get some breakfast (mmm...nutella and banana crepes), we decided to first explore Fort Lawrence, an ancient fortress across a little cove from the historic center. We climbed up into all of the different nooks and crannies of the stronghold, taking pictures from every angle. Jessie also had fun matching up each spot in the fort to different scenes in the Game of Thrones series, which is largely filmed in Dubrovnik!

View of Fort Lawrence from the Old City

Looking back at the Old City from Fort Lawrence

 

That afternoon, we climbed up onto Dubrovnik's ancient defensive walls, one of the main sightseeing attractions. Many people bemoan the fact that the city has become overrun with tourists in recent years and consequently that the walls are too crowded to enjoy, but we've learned the secret: go in the off-season. Jessie and I were practically the only people there! We spent a leisurely few hours walking around the walls, taking about four billion pictures along the way.

In addition to taking in the stunning views from the top of the city walls, we were also able to get a visual sense of the damage Dubrovnik suffered when it was bombed in 1991 during the Yugoslav Wars. Although nearly all other traces of the fighting have been erased, you can tell where the bombs landed based on the colors of the house roofs. The older roofs that escaped extensive damage still retain their mottled, brown hue, while the ones that had to be replaced are bright orange.

I made this a little bigger in hopes that you'll be able to make out the key. The black triangles show where a roof was damaged by a direct hit, orange indicates where a building was burned down, the open triangles mark where a roof was damaged by shrapnel, and the black dots show where there was a direct hit on the pavement. 

 

You can't tell from the picture, but that was one steep staircase. Dubronik is hilly!

 

After descending from the city walls, we headed over Buza Bar, a spot that several people had recommended to us. The main draw to this particular bar is its unique location: it's literally built into the city wall facing the water!

We gave Lokrum Island the evil eye from Buza Bar. We asked about boats over, but it was closed for the winter!

 

Rounding out the afternoon, we caught another beautiful sunset from a rocky outcropping on the other side of Fort Lawrence before going out for dinner at a cute pizzeria with HUGE pies. I couldn't have asked for a better day!

Montenegro
After quite a bit of research (thanks, Jessie!), we had booked two day-long tours through a company called Dubrovnik Day Tours before we arrived in Croatia, one to Montenegro and the other to Bosnia and Herzegovina. So, bright and early Thursday morning, we met up with Ivo, a Dubrovnik local and one of the owners of the company, and set out south towards Montenegro. As we followed the coastline and eventually crossed the border, Ivo shared an incredible amount of information about the city of Dubrovnik, Croatia, and Montenegro. He touched on the history, culture, language, economy, agriculture, government, and more of the two countries and of the entire region in general, drawing on his own experience and other sources.

We had several stops planned for the day, starting with a break for a morning coffee on the shores of the Bay of Kotor in a tiny town called Perast.

Directly across the Bay of Kotor from Perast

 

Pretty little Perast

Coffee break spot in Perast. Not a bad view!

Our next stop was Kotor, where Ivo gave us a short tour around and left us some time on our own to admire the mountains and take some pictures. If we'd had a bit longer there it would have been fun to hike the city walls, but an hour or so was perfect to walk around the cute little town.

Outside the Kotor city walls

 

After leaving the city, we drove up a one-lane road with some crazy-sharp switchbacks to a look-out point with a view over the bay. Luckily, since it was low-season, we only passed one or two other cars on the road. That was daunting enough for us, but Ivo said that in the summer the road is packed with tour buses, cars, and cyclists. Apparently his company stopped including the look-out point on the tour during high-season because the risk of having an accident and associated liability became too high!

 

Our last stop of the day was in Budva, which is a little bit of a party town on the Montenegro coast. (Ivo told us that he met his girlfriend, a woman from Montenegro, at a club in Budva!) We didn't find the town to be particularly enthralling, but we had a nice lunch at a cafe with seating on the beach.

Views of Budva from an overlook point nearby

 

Crossing back into Croatia (our passports got quite a workout during this trip, crossing back and forth among Croatia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzagovina!), we made it home just in time to enjoy another beautiful sunset!

Ferry ride back across the Bay of Kotor!

 

Bosnia and Herzegovina

On Friday morning, we met back up with Ivo for our second tour, this time to Mostar, a town in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Along the way and before we crossed the border, however, we stopped in Ston, Croatia, for coffee and a brief tour. I thought the two most interesting features of the town were its medieval stone (get it?) walls and its salt fields. The defensive walls, which include one going around the city and another that extends across the nearby hills, protected Ston and other cities under ancient Dubrovnik's control from invaders. In fact, the Ston Walls are the second longest defensive walls in the world after the Great Wall of China!

The salt mines, the oldest in Europe, were also very interesting. Ivo explained to us the basic process for producing sea salt, which essentially involves capturing seawater in a series of pools and then harvesting the salt that remains after several successive rounds of evaporation. Having never considered where sea salt comes from before, I was fascinated. It would be fun to go back during the harvest season in late summer to see the sea salt farm at work!

Our first stop in Bosnia and Herzegovina was in a tiny Muslim village just across the border. We only stayed a few minutes, but Ivo used it as an jump-off point to start talking about the tensions that still exist in the region among the different ethnic groups. Then, as we went deeper into the country towards Mostar, he shared a wealth of information, explaining the factors that caused the wars, discussing the aftermath, and touching on some of his views about current politics.

 

When we arrived in Mostar, Ivo entrusted us to the care of a local guide for a brief tour of the city. In particular, the guide talked about the history of the famous bridge in the center of town, Stari Most. Originally built in the 1500s by the Ottomans, the bridge stood for hundreds of years until it was bombed by Croat forces in 1993 in retaliation for the bombing of Dubrovnik. Later, during reconstruction, the builders used the same techniques the Ottomans employed over 400 years ago, and they were able to incorporate some of the old stones from the destroyed bridge along with new ones from nearby quarries.

Walking towards Mostar's town center

Mostar's Stari Most in the background!

We finished our tour with some Turkish tea and coffee, and afterwards Jessie and I walked around a bit before stopping for lunch. All of the restaurants in Croatia seemed to have the same selection of standard pizza, pasta, and salad dishes, so we were happy to try something a little different in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the food has more of a middle eastern flair.

Our Mostar guide explaining how to properly drink Turkish coffee

Jessie smiled hesitantly as we pondered whether the water in Bosnia and Herzegovina was safe to drink. (It was.)

View of the Mostar bridge from down below. Fun fact: "Mostar" means "bridge keeper."

I really liked the pretty cobblestone designs on some of the streets!.

After lunch, we met back up with Ivo for the ride back to Dubrovnik. He took a different route home so that we could see a bit more of the country and the landscape. It was beautiful, if barren in some parts. What struck me most, however, was how conspicuous I felt riding in a car with Croatian license plates through predominately Serbian territory. There was one point at which Ivo told us that if we had to use the bathroom we would have to wait about twenty minutes because we were in an area in which he didn't feel comfortable stopping. That comment, combined with the roadsigns warning not to walk in certain areas because of unexploded landmines and the extra few minutes of scrutiny of our passports at the border crossing, really highlighted for me the uneasy relations that still exist in the former Yugoslav countries.

We made it back to Dubrovnik after our tour in Bosnia and Herzegovina a bit exhausted, but intrigued by the history of the region. I wish I could have recorded everything Ivo told us because the two days were really rich in information. I would definitely recommend his company to anyone thinking about a trip to Dubrovnik!

Goodbye Dubrovnik; Hello Zagreb!
Since we'd had a late lunch in Mostar, we weren't too hungry for dinner when we got back from our tour. After unwinding for a bit, however, we decided to try to find something small to eat at D'Vino, a wine bar in the Old City that had very positive reviews online. This turned out to be one of the best decisions of the trip! The bar, which is owned by an Australian-Croatian guy (it turns out that many young Aussies whose parents and grandparents fled during the war have moved to Croatia), was cozy and incredibly friendly. Having just re-opened for the upcoming season, the owner and his staff weren't too busy and were happy to chat with us. Over the course of the night, they kept refilling our glasses with more wine, urging us to taste a few that they had opened for themselves. The owner even brought me (the non-vegetarian of our duo) some charcuterie that he was thinking of adding to the menu as a pairing for some of the wines! We had a wonderful time -- it was a perfect way to spend our last night in Dubrovnik.

The Postup was definitely my favorite, and Jessie was all about the Dingač!

On Saturday morning, Jessie and I took a tranquil walk along the coast and had lunch in the less-touristy Lapad Bay neighborhood before heading to the airport for our flights back to Zagreb. We were sad to say goodbye to Dubrovnik (and especially to the sunny weather!), but we were also ready to start making our way home. Thankfully, the flight was uneventful -- if you don't count Jessie's extremely, uh, thorough security pat-down and my white-knuckled grip on the seats of our propeller plane -- and we landed in Zagreb without any problems.

When we were in Dubrovnik, we had tried to go to Nishta, a restaurant we'd found online that serves only vegetarian and vegan food. Unfortunately, they were closed during the off-season. Their sister location in Zagreb was open, however, so we went there for dinner when we got in Saturday night. After a week of eating mostly veggie pizzas, Jessie was thrilled to have other options. We may or may not have gone there for lunch on Sunday too!

One happy vegetarian!

With our respective flights home not until the evening, Jessie and I made the most of our time on Sunday to check out Zagreb. After stopping to partake in the city's thriving coffee culture at a cafe overlooking the main square, we followed a walking tour in our guidebook to the main sites downtown. It was rainy and cold that day in Zagreb, but we persevered. Considering the great weather we'd had the rest of the trip, one bad-weather day was no problem!

The Zagreb funicular, the shortest in the world. Isn't it cute?

Both Croatia and Serbia claim Nikola Tesla as their own, but he diplomatically expressed love for both of them.

St. Mark's Church

Croatian Parliament building

Historical residence of Croatian political leaders

It was an admittedly short visit and maybe I would feel differently if we had been there on a sunny summer day, but Zagreb felt distinctly grittier and more "underground cool" to me than the other places we visited in Croatia. Case in point: they have a museum called the "Museum of Broken Relationships." If we had had another day, it would have been fun to check that out, along with the other museums in the city! Alas, too much to see, too little time.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip. I feel so lucky to have had the chance to go to Croatia, and even luckier that I got to explore the country with a truly wonderful friend <3.