Tag: Carcassonne

Life in France

Sunday in the village

The flea market linking the "new" city to the old
The flea market linking the “new” city to the old

When we first started thinking about moving to France, we skipped right over the glittering excitement of Paris and envisioned a quintessential rural village with stone cottages, a mill by the stream, blooming flowers everywhere and the tiny lanes alive with chatter from friendly local residents. While that ideal still exists here, reality stepped in when choosing to live without a car meant that we would need to be within walking distance of all of our daily needs with easy access to public transit for longer journeys. Although we don’t live in a rural location, this past Sunday reminded us that we still found that village life we were seeking.

Continue reading “Sunday in the village”

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Life in France

Free association

The annual showcase of Associations poster (from the city's website)
The annual showcase of Associations poster (from the city’s website)

When we first moved to the Atlanta area we were kind of isolated in both the physical sense and with social connections. We knew some of the neighbors and we saw people at work but being far out of the city had its disadvantages. The first weekend dinner group that we joined was called Out in the Country to give you an idea of our remote location. It took a few years after that to discover another social group for us that actually had Georgia’s capital city’s name in its title. Luckily, within two weeks of moving to Carcassonne we were part of a discussion group and after this past weekend’s Rendez-vous des Associations, things are looking even brighter. Continue reading “Free association”

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Life in France

Snow capped summer

The Pyrenees viewed from Carcassonne
The Pyrenees viewed from Carcassonne

American humorist author Mark Twain once wrote that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. He apparently never made it to Carcassonne in August. We’ve been in the City by the Bay shivering in the fog with only short sleeve shirts and shorts and know exactly what he was talking about. What we didn’t know however was that we’d have the same experience here in the south of France and we’re not complaining at all. Continue reading “Snow capped summer”

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Life in France

Carcassonne, Spain

La Feria poster on the stage at Place Carnot
La Feria poster on the stage at Place Carnot

Like you, probably, Bill and I thought that we lived in France. For the past 4 days however, it seems that we’ve slipped south of the border into Spain. For the last 10 years the city has held an increasingly popular music festival for 6 weeks during the summer that literally fills the air with sound from concerts that stretch from inside the walls of the castle to the banks of the river and canal. While the majority of those events are in French, lots of what we heard and saw this weekend had a distinct Spanish accent as the city celebrated La Feria. Continue reading “Carcassonne, Spain”

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Life in France

A line to The Da Vinci Code

Louvre museum and the Seine river
Louvre museum and the Seine river

One of the nice things about not having a car is that when you walk everywhere you have time to stop when something catches your eye. It doesn’t matter if it’s a shop with an interesting window display, a Medieval carved doorway that you want to investigate, or even those flowers you want to take the time to smell. We sometimes take the city bus to a shopping area outside of town and near the stop where we get on is the marker you see in the photo. Of course I had to find out why this stone had an upward pointing arrow and the words Meridien de Paris. Continue reading “A line to The Da Vinci Code”

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Life in France

Liberation of Carcassonne

Flowers at the Monument of the Resistance, Square Gambetta
Flowers at the Monument of the Resistance, Square Gambetta

Earlier today at three different locations the city marked the 72nd anniversary of the liberation of Carcassonne from Nazi occupation; at two memorials and at the site of a former prison. Each ceremony was similar including the national anthem, a moment of silence and the laying of a wreath. Bill and I have long maintained that learning history is much more interesting when you actually see a castle in person, visit a museum where a famous painting is displayed, or walk through a cave that humans inhabited 20,000 years earlier and view the artwork they created. What I didn’t count on is how moving it can be as well. Continue reading “Liberation of Carcassonne”

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Life in France

In the market for music

Fresh lettuce at the market
Fresh lettuce at the market

Carcassonne has an open-air market 3 days a week and we often walk over there even if we don’t need any fruits or vegetables, just for the free entertainment. The colorful displays of fresh produce, some of which might have been in the ground or picked just hours before, are interesting enough. Add to that perhaps a guitarist, a dance troupe, drummers, a jazz or pop trio, and your morning is off to a great start. Last Saturday was no different except that Bill told me we’d be listening to “The Winds of Angels”. Now I was intrigued. Continue reading “In the market for music”

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