Durfort, France Part Trois Cité de Carcassonne

August 01, 2019

Durfort, France Part Trois Cité de Carcassonne

Cité de Carcassonne

It's not every day that you get to walk around inside of a medieval citadel!

Upon arrival, our group exchanged phone numbers and split into two. Half of the group ended up taking a tour of the castle and enjoying time in a cafe while the other half walked the grounds and explored the cathedral. Note to any future European adventurers, don't just exchange phone numbers. Decide on a time and a meeting place and stick to it. Cellphone reception within ancient cathedral walls isn't very good as we found out...

Colorado Karen, Tracey, Cori and I walked around and this is what we saw...

The photos below are deceiving. The castle walls could hardly contain the amount of tourists walking the grounds. I tried to take photos without people as much possible. We found out that inside the ancient walls, there were shops, cafes, restaurants, hotels and even homes! The citadel had long ago been turned into a tourist trap!

That didn't keep us from enjoying the history and ancient architecture.

I think that some of us left inspired and quite eager to paint high walls, bricks and arches.

Once you left the safety of the city walls, the wind was bustling. It was so powerful, it almost knocked you off your feet! We waited for our group to reconvene.

There's the rest of our group! The sisters and Isle of Man Karen! We're reunited!

Off to the art supply store we go!

At the art store, I took one photo (the store is part art supplies, part house paints.) I was tempted by a couple of new (to me) lines of acrylic paints (yeah, Van Gogh acrylics, I'm still side-eyeing you) but decided to try to be good (our trip was still just beginning and we still had many art museums and bookstores ahead of us.) I bought a set of brushes and a couple of tiny da Vinci paint brushes (they were so cute and very inexpensive! I wish I had bought more of them!) Everyone left the store with goodies in hand and off we went back to Durfort for another evening of art making.