Narbonne to Uzes

April 20, Easter Sunday

Our last day in Narbonne.  I finally felt up to going someplace – other than just a short walk.   We decided to go to Carcassonne.  It is only about an hour from Narbonne.  It was a little drizzly and cool but we only had this one last day to explore the area.  So we headed to the medieval, walled Cité de Carcassonne.

From the Carcassone Tourism site – a brief history:

In Carcassone, the oldest traces of man - 6th century B.C. - were found on the hill where the medieval city lies. In 122 B.C., the Romans conquered the Provence and the Languedoc and fortified the area which took the name of Carcaso.  They occupied the region until the middle of the 5th century.  The Visigoths then became the masters of Spain and the Languedoc.  The Cité remained in their hands from 460 to 725 A.D. In the spring of 725, the Saracens took the Cité.  They were driven away in 759 by Pépin le Bref, king of the Franks.  After the death of Charlemagne, the dismembering of the Empire gave birth to the feudal system.  It was under the dynasty of the Trencavels, from 1082 to 1209, that the town began to gain tremendous influence.

The Crusade

During this prosperous period, Catharism grew rapidly. Raymond Roger Trencavel, vicomte of Carcassonne (1194-1209) both tolerated and protected the heretics on his own lands.  He suffered the first impact of the crusade preached by Pope Innocent III and on August 15th, 1209, after a two-week siege, it was all over. The Cité and the lands of Trencavel were first handed to the military commander of the crusade, Simon de Montfort, then to the King of France in 1224.

Destroyed and rebuilt

Under the successive reigns of Louis IX, Philippe Le Hardi and Philippe Le Bel, it grew its modern-day shape. A new borough was born on the left bank in 1262:  La Bastide Saint-Louis.  Set on fire by the Black Prince in 1355, it was immediately rebuilt. While this new town was bustling with activity, the Cité consolidated its role as a royal fortress.

The end of the stronghold

But due to the use of new war techniques (gunpowder, cannon) and above all to the recession of the Franco-Spanish border in 1659 after the Peace of the Pyrénées, it was gradually abandoned.  In the 18th century, the Cité was little more than slum, a poverty-stricken, outlying area in a town made wealthy by the wine trade and the cloth manufacturing industry.  Only through the joint efforts of Jean-Pierre Cros-Mayrevieille, a historian and a citizen of Carcassonne, of Mérimée and the famous architect Viollet-le-Duc was it saved from demolition.  Thousands of people today are able to see and admire the most accomplished fortified town in Europe.

If you are interested in seeing much better pictures than the ones I took, you can Google ‘Carcassonne’ and select the tourism website.  It has some beautiful shots, but here are mine…

Just as you enter the first set of walls to the town

Arne by the entrance to the ramparts

They have people walking around in medieval garb dressed as various characters (princess, warrior, entertainers)

Walking the outer edge of the interior of the city

The back side of Carcassonne

The front from the town

We enjoyed our visit, but thought the walled city was overly commercialized.  Still, it’s interesting to walk around inside this ancient place and imagine people living here 2000+ years ago.

We took the highway (toll road) back to Narbonne.  When we got back to the parking garage, the doors were closed.  Arne thought it meant they were closed on Sunday (the parking garages in Carcassone were closed on Sundays).   So we parked on the street and determined (with Google Translate) that you didn’t have to pay on Sundays and holidays – at least that is what we interpreted.  Luckily, when we were walking to dinner later, we saw someone drive into the garage (door opened based on sensor), so… Arne went and got the car and parked in the garage – we were relieved to get it safely off the street.

Arne with our little Citroen DS4

A lot of the restaurants were closed, however we found a place on the corner and the meal was excellent.  Tomato and mozzarella salad (caprese), “tarjin de poulet” (chicken breast and veggies in a nicely spiced broth), and chocolate mousse for desert.   Salad at dinner at CO Brasserie:

April 21, Monday (Happy Birthday to my sister, Karen!)

Today we headed out of Narbonne around 12:30PM and got on the toll ‘freeway’ toward Uzes.  Here are a few photos of the drive our GPS took us on after we left the highway. 

This is a beautiful road, but a little scary

These are called 'plane trees' - from the sycamore family.  They were planted along the edge of the roads to provide shade for the Roman armies.  They make the road seem a little narrow!

The road to our place...also a little narrow.

We arrived in Uzes and were instantly smitten with this ancient, picturesque town!  It’s small – you can circle it (which the road around the perimeter requires) in about 6 minutes, and its full of history.  We are looking forward to doing a walking tour of the city this week.

We checked into our place.  The gal who owns it with her husband is a delightful young woman.  She is from Paris, but moved here to Uzes in 2003 and has been here ever since.  Her husband remodeled the house completely.  He is a cabinetmaker and did all the cabinets in the kitchen and the tile work inside the house (kitchen and bathrooms) and did a beautiful job.  She decorated with some lovely pottery pieces (she used to have a gallery) and they are very unique.  We are very happy with the place.  It has a great outdoor patio and 2 nice bikes we can use.  The house is just north of Uzes – walking distance to the old town.  I’ll post some photos of it later this week.

After unpacking and settling in a bit, we walked to town to see what was going on.  Today was a holiday (the day after Easter, as well as my sister’s birthday!), so lots of places were closed.  Still, we made our way around the outside loop of the city and then headed down Rue de la Republic and found the coolest wine store – ‘La Cave’ (are they all called that?) – it had a gravel floor and curved walls (like a cave) and a huge selection.  We continued on this path and reached the town square (Place de Herbes).  What a delightful place!   I didn’t take pictures there, but will on Wednesday when we are going on the walking tour of the city.  It has many large trees around a fountain and is surrounded by restaurants where you can eat under cover (this time of year), but outside.  We found a restaurant we wanted to try but they didn’t serve dinner until 7PM…so we walked home and then came back about 7:30 to have dinner.  Dinner was fine – not great, but a funny story came out of it…When we had finished dinner, the waitress (a young lady of about 23) came by and I said, “Je suis fini”,  thinking I was saying “I am done”.  She laughed and told us, “It is ‘J’ai fini’ – what you said was ‘I am finished’“ -- and she made the ‘slashing throat’ motion!   We all laughed but I appreciated the correction!  Like I said before, our French sucks!

April 22, Tuesday (Happy Birthday to ME – and Happy Earth Day)

Today I slept until after 9AM!  Got up and we ate whatever we had in the house, which was not much (eggs, cheese and coffee).  Then we hopped into our cute little Citroen and headed for Pont du Gard.  This is a Roman aqueduct built in the first century AD to supply the town of Nimes with water from the Gardon River.  A little history from the official website:

The Pont du Gard is a Roman monument built halfway through the 1^st century AD. It is the principal construction in a 50 km long aqueduct that supplied the city of Nîmes, formerly known as Nemausus, with water. Built as a three-level aqueduct standing 50 m high, it allowed water to flow across the Gardon river.

In essence, the bridge is constructed out of soft yellow limestone blocks, taken from a nearby quarry that borders the river. The highest part of the structure is made out of breeze blocks joined together with mortar. It is topped by a device designed to bear the water channel, whose stone slabs are covered with calcium deposits.

In designing this three-story bridge, which measures 360 m at its longest point along the top, the Roman architects and hydraulic engineers created a technical masterpiece that stands today as a work of art.

As a result of numerous scientific studies, we now know that an impressive volume of rock was needed to complete the construction.

Moreover, archaeologists also uncovered evidence of how well organized the project was. They found numbering on the stones, points of support for scaffolding, and evidence of the use of hoists.

Here are a couple of my photos from Pont du Gard:

A 1000 year old Olive Tree!

Shot of Pont du Gard from the top of the path

Pont du Gard and the Gardon River

Me with the Pont du Gard in the background

We were totally impressed with the Pont du Gard and spent a few hours hiking around it, then having lunch at a restaurant on the other side of the river - “Les Terrasses”.

Arne had salted cod gratinee with salad and bread.  I had a bunless burger with carmelized onions and a salad and frites.  Of course, we also had the allotted 3 ozs. of wine.

We left Pont du Gard and headed back to Uzes to go grocery shopping.  There is a Carrefour store in Uzes – it’s a large grocery store/clothing store – kind of like Fred Meyer.  We got there and went to get a cart but you need to put a coin in the slot on the cart in order to take it with you.  I remembered this from when I was in the Netherlands.  So we put in our Euro and took the cart (you get your Euro back when you return it).   I think we spent at least an hour in Carrefour because we couldn’t tell what we were buying!  I asked a gal in the aisle if she spoke English and she said no…then I proceeded to pantomime what I was asking for – fabric softener.  She, of course, replied in French, which I didn’t understand, and then she left.  We did finally find it (Arne used Google Translate), and moved on.  That wore us out.  Then we stopped for gas and there was a back-up at the pay station so the pump we chose didn’t work until the previous customer had paid.  We didn’t have to wait too long (about 5 minutes), but we didn’t really know what the heck was going on.  We got home, unloaded everything, and Arne poured himself a scotch and I poured myself a glass of wine and we sat out on the patio enjoying the olive trees, the bamboo along the fence, and the quiet yard.