Carcassonne

I never thought I would get to see this fabled place, but it was remarkably accessible, despite the strikes currently prevalent in France.  The strikes meant we weren't able to walk the castle walls.  But what we could access was fabulous.

The French do tourism well, by which I mean there is a level of taste and subtlety such that the attraction is not overwhelmed by the desire to make a dollar.  The French seem to respect their history, which is good as the certainly have a lot of it.

Medieval tax avoidance.

Tax was paid on a building's footprint.

The yellow paint is recent and supposedly temporary.

Something that has been missing from every other castle I have visited,

the wooden fighting tops.

The interior passage of one of the wooden fighting tops along the wall.

One interesting comment was that the castle was built or rather an early objective was to keep the Spanish out, but now they are welcomed to Carcassonne as tourists.

An added advantage of this visit is the hope I now have that I can get Karen to play the Carcassonne boardgame (at least once).