If you were hoping to fly into or out of Carcassonne last weekend, you were out of luck. The airport was closed to all commercial traffic yet the city was still expecting up to 50,000 people or about 2 month’s worth of passenger traffic in just two days. Why the crowds? It was the 5th annual “Meeting Aérien Des Etoiles et Des Ailes” that we would just call the Air Show that in previous years had been held in Toulouse, an hour west of here. Given that we live about 40 minutes by foot from the airport or perhaps 40 seconds in a plane that’s landing, we even had part of the show overhead.

While the main event was going to take place in the sky, the weekend got started on the ground inside the airport terminal where aeronautical companies were highlighting career opportunities initially to middle and high school students and later to the general public. With 60,000 jobs in the region, the industry was hoping to find lots of new talent. 

Then everyone moved outside for 6 hours of aerobatics, performed by 40 different aircraft, vintage and modern, from across Europe and the USA, including a plane restored by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. While individuals had particular planes that interested them, probably everybody came to see la Patrouille de France, a skilled set of pilots similar to the Blue Angels and the Red Arrows. For 20 minutes they put on a show with intricate formations and maneuvers at high speeds that ended with the sky filled with contrail colors of bleu, blanc, rouge (cover and first paragraph photos).

If you were indeed “stuck” in Carcassonne for the weekend it wouldn’t have been so bad since it also happened to be Les Journées Européennes du Patrimoine. The “European Heritage Days” is an annual event where countries across Europe open their doors to the public, offering free access to historical monuments, cultural sites, and other places of interest. In France, about 16,000 sites were open, including the dozen or so in Carcassonne. In the gallery below you can see a few of the buildings, views, and demonstrations that were featured.

For anyone concerned about air travel in and out of Carcassonne for the weekend, no worries. The trains took up the slack with additional departures from both Toulouse and Montpellier with a free shuttle bus running between the train station and the airport.

All photos today are from the city’s Facebook page, ©Ville de Carcassonne – D.Reina and Julien Roche, thank you!