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!