Blog 1.15: Days Eight and Nine

It's the last day of September already, and today we made it to the wonderful city of Carcassonne.

It's a place I've always wanted to visit, so it's always the time to be disappointed. But not this time. It's everything the Instagram photos and the web articles promise. And more. But more of that in a wee while.

Carcassonne

Yesterday, the 29th, came along wet, as seems to be the theme. We'd spent the night with four other vans in the car park (well, mudpatch) of a rather isolated Ferme de fromage, which was quite appropriately situated on the 'Route du Fromage'.

Cheese, Gromit?

They have quite a few 'Routes de or du, here (I may well confuse my de and du, and le and Ia, so try not to be offended if you speak decenter French than wot I do. I apologise up front, but, to paraphrase Lee Mack when chastised by a French waiter when ordering La Poulet, when he should have ordered Le Poulet, 'I want to eat it, not f**k it') it seems, depending on the local speciality. Cheese it was yesterday. Tomorrow would be a 'vin' equivalent as we pootled off the mountains north of Caucassonne.

I'd decided to put in a few miles to get us close to Carcassonne, and we did manage to get fairly close, passing through some beautiful country, including the incredible Lot Gorge below the town of Entraygues-sur-Truyere, a beautiful little town in its own right nestling at the confluence of the Lot and the river that it is named after.

Entraygues

Motoring on, we decided to call it quits at Labruguiere as mentioned in yesterday's Aire missive.

More rain!

So to this morning, and with the rain still hanging around we took a leisurely breakfast of toast and marmalade, made more leisurely by the fact that the 'toaster' refused point blank to toast, requiring a rethink, and the deployment of a pan on the induction hob. It worked too.

With the opportunity to do some 'on the road chores' presenting itself, fluids were dumped, other fluids taken on board, and we hit the road southwards.

What a great road it was too.

I'd kinda assumed we'd be skirting the mountain range that we could see from town, but no, up and over we went. No, it wasn't alpine, or even Pyrennean, but it was a long old slog with the temperature dropping in tune with the fuel gauge. But boy was it worth it - and we gained about 25 miles on the computer's readout on the way down the other side, so all's good.

That descent soon brought into view the aforementioned Pyrennees too. Shrouded in mist and murk, maybe, but clear in their intent as the fortress citadel protecting France from Spain. Or is it protecting Spain from France? Who cares. They look great, and I'm now looking forward to attacking them on Sunday with the assault on Andorra before dropping into Northern Spain and some forecasted better weather.

Actually, it's not too bad here in Carcassonne now as we sit outside the van in the Camping de la Cite site just a 25 minute walk from the Cité itself.

Pleasant walk from the site

It's just nice to be able to sit outside instead of huddled in the van!

If you've never been to Carcassonne, go if you can. It's so worth it.

Mileage so far: 925