To Carcassonne

Bon Jour from France! We left Barcelona on Sunday, having enjoyed it immensely, and seeing no sign at all of the pickpockets that everyone warned us of - but possibly were so naive we wouldn't recognize them anyway. Travelling to Carcassone was more tiresome than we thought. We bought Eurrail passes online from Australia, but could not make any actual reservations until we arrived in Europe. So we turned up to Carcassone station, to be told they could book us on two of the three trains we needed to catch (Carcassonne to Figueres Viafant, then on to Narbonne), but could not book the third leg (Narbonne to Carcassonne), since that was a French train. When we arrived at Narbonne, the next 2 trains were full, so we spent a frustrating 2 hours sitting in a hot station. We eventually arrived at Carcassonne early evening, hot, tired & sweaty, but the view from our apartment made it all worthwhile! Wendy, thanks for insisting we had to come here!!
Carcassonne is a brilliantly well-preserved medieval walled city (cite)on a hilltop, with the 'modern' town (ie still ancient by our standards) spread out below. Our hotel is just below the Cite walls, which are lit up at night, and we can see it all from our apartment window! The cite is full of restaurants & shops, even hotels, all in these incredible medieval buildings. We've already walked up for dinner on Sunday night for our first peek, but will spend all day there tomorrow exploring in detail. today was spent exploring the town, and booking our train journey to Paris on Wednesday - again most of the trains were already full, so we won't get to Paris until midnight.