To Carcassonne…Day 5!

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From: the Marina Muni To: “Camping Citie”, Carcassonne in Carcassonne: 63 km

We’re up! We’re packed! We leave the municipal campground, not following their recommendations though…

We’ll leave the campground entrance the way we found it, thank you very much.

The nice lady who runs the campground warned us as we left that the trail along the canal was soon to turn to crap though – looking at our bikes she said “…maybe.” If we had trailers or were on road bikes, ne pas traverser.

Well, warning taken, we headed out following our GPS track (along the canal, of course). Sure enough, things soon got gnarly.

And gnarlier… We soon tired of loose sandy gravel and tree roots, and re-routed along the D33, a secondary highway, and other surface streets. The A61 superhighway ran parallel to the route only a couple km away though, so anyone in a hurry was not on our roads. Nice to be on asphalt for a while, although the heat wave temperatures were persisting, so it was hot, and hot early.

We aim for Castelnaudary for breakfast, and pick up our snacks at a downtown grocery. I check in at the TI, asking the girl behind the counter first “Do you speak English?”. “Not today” is her reply. Cheeky monkey!

I ask if she knows if the canal trails get better – all she knows is that she hears a lot of complaints about them, so I guess that’s that. Surface streets to Carcassonne it is!

The TI in Castelnaudary, pitching their local celebrity!

It’s a relatively short ride from their to Carcassonne, where we grab a cool adult beverage in the main square, then seek out the “Camping Citie” five star campground a short walk from the old town (“Citie”) we aim to tour tomorrow.

First view of the medieval town of Carcassonne.

Check in is accomplished, with a ‘phew’ from us, as we were unsure if we were going to be able to stay for only two nights. Prior to the trip, I had checked the camp’s website, and it indicated that online reso’s could only be made for a seven day minimum stay. Apparently showing up has different rules (at least for cycling campers), which we found elsewhere on the trip too.

It was getting along in the day by now, too late to make a serious shot at touristing, so we took advantage of the amenities – swimming, power for our electronics, a beer or two, more swimming, a surprisingly good dinner, and to top it all off, an evening of Karaoke!

OK, I had called it a night before the Karaoke. Scott claims that he didn’t get up on stage, but I have no proof of that…