Languedoc-Roussillon

The first thing we did in the morning was to go back to Lagrasse to visit the monastry-museum.

Then we moved to north to visit the Minervois region as planned. Minervois is also famous for its wine and has its own AOC. It is smaller than Corbieres and less hilly. We passed Canal du Midi in Homps and continued to Olonzac. There we stopped for a lunch surprisingly in a very good restaurant called Restaurant du Minervois, I chose ostrich meat but the menu in general was more traditional. Our next destination was goint to be Minerve, one of 'the most beautiful villages of France' (Lagrasse is also in the same category).

Minerve is a small village surrounded by a gorge. It is well preserved and full of visitors.

After Minerve we drove back to Homps to see the Canal du Midi closer. In fact, this is our first time on the Canal because we could't visit it neither in Toulouse nor in Carcasonne. We walked a bit along the canal and also visited the village.

From Homps we took the road D11 which cuts thru west Minervois. First we stopped in Rieux-Minervois because it has very important heptagonal church with some Master of Cabestany sculptures as a bonus.

Since it was already late afternoon, we tried to reach to Caunes-Minervois as soon as possible. Caunes-Minervois although not labelled as one of the most beautiful villages in France, still is a beautiful village with a very important monastry. We were lucky as it was open until 18.00. The church of the monastry has also some Master of Cabestany pieces.

Since it was still not very late, Burcu decided to go to Chateau Lastours which is not far away. Although it was closed we were very happy to have seen it even if only from far away.

We reached back to Carcassonne from Orbiel valley. We ate in a pizzeria in the newer part of Carcassonne next to place Carnot. This was another day full with history and nature.

This is our day to discover the region around Carcassonne, called Corbieres. Corbieres is generally extends south of the motorway connecting Carcassonne to Narbonne (D6113) until the mountains which were once the Spanish border. It is one of the biggest wine growing regions in France and has its own AOC. Corbieres is a hilly country and it possess many interesting sights.

The owner of the Chambres d'Hotes convinced us to go to Abbaye Fontfroide which is very close to Narbonne. So, we changed our plans and first headed there. Some TomTom mistakes brought us to the Abbey quite late, the only way to visit the complex was the guided tour which was going to have a lunch break. We decided to continue our trip and left the visit of this ancient Abbey to another day.

We used road D613 to reach Villerouge-Termenes. This village contains a renovated castle located inside the village. Thus begin our Cathar journey and our first castle visit. However they also had a lunch break, worse the restaurant serving medieaval food also closed its kitchen due to low number of customers. Disappointed we went to the only other eating option in the village to calm our stomachs. After lunch we visited the castle. Since the castle is owned by the village, it has some video films telling the Cathar story.

We continued towards Termes following route D40. The nature around this region is one of the most beautiful and exciting ones that we have seen so far. It is wild hills with dense forests. We reached the village Termes (if you can call it a village) and climbed up to Chateau Termes. We were virtually alone all the way up to the castle and no one was to be seen also in the castle.

We continued towards Lagrasse. On the way Ruins of Chateau de Dufort can be seen at the right side.

Lagrasse is supposed to be one of the highlights of Corbieres, a must-see! It kept its medieval character and has also an important abbey (actually 2!). We were again late to visit the abbey becuase it was closed at 17.00. However, we managed to visit the village.

We returned Carcassonne very tired, especially Burcu because she was the driver. Since it was Tuesday the restaurants were open this time. We decided to eat in Comte Roger, an elegant restaurant with delicious food.

We drove from Castres to Carcassonne passing thru Mazamet, hills and woods. This is the road D118. We picked up a hitchhiking young french fellow, he wanted also to reach Carcassonne. We left him in the city center. Carcassonne has a new but not so new part (the lower town) with rectangular, narrow streets and a fortified town called la Cite up over the Aude river with some settlement aorund the fortifications towards the river. It is the fortified town that interests everybody and of course us.

We had difficulty to locate our chambre d'hotes. Finally Burcu called them and got a better hint how to reach there. Our chambre d'hotes is around 2-3 km to La Cite next to some vineyards. We planned to stay 3 nights there, as a base to discover the region nearby. We had a pleasant room. We had some parking problems as we tried to find a place for free near La Cite.

We had only few hours to visit La Cite, but this seemed to be sufficient. There were many tourists inside the fortified town. Although it supposed to be the largest intact medieaval town, once you are inside you realize that it has only a couple of streets, plenty of restaurants and that's all. We visited the castle and took a guided tour to visit the ramparts and towers. The guide was a bit boring perhaps because his french was incomprehensible to me for most of the time. We also visited the basilica St-Nazaire.

For dinner we ate at a restaurant inside La Cite. Alper's first and last experience with cassoulet (I liked it though)

Albi is the administrative capital of the region and is about 1 hr driving distance to Toulouse. During our trip we decided to avoid the highways as much as possible to increase the flexibility and visual experience. On the way to Albi we visited three villages. St-Sulpice , Rabastens and Lisle-sur-Tarn.

To reach St-Sulpice you have to leave main road A68. It has a nice 14. century church with a castle like facade but it was closed, the village is also famous for its suspended bridge.

We continued to Rabastens. The architecture of Rabastens is very bricky, but the church Notre Dame du Bourg with its preserved frescoes deserved the real applause. In fact until the end of the trip we never encountered such colours again.

We continued to Lisle-sur-Tarn. Every village seems to have a different character. And this one with its arcades also surprised us.

Finally we arrived to Denis and Ottilia's house in Albi at lunch time.

We even managed to visit the cathedral after lunch and the old town center. The center of Albi is small but quite developed.

Today is our second day in Toulouse and is also Ascension holiday, so all the shops and most of the restaurants were closed. We began our day with visiting first N.D. de Taur church and then St-Sernin , a huge Romanesque style basilica and the main church of the city. Unfortunately for us, there was a mess and didn't seem to end soon. We restricted ourselved with visual inspection without moving much. I can only confirm that indeed it is an impressive church.

We next moved to Bemberg collection in Hotel d'Assezat. There is a lunch break in many museums in this region and you supposed to leave the museum and come back later. The Bemberg collection is very impressive because not only it contains countless Renaissance and Baroque furniture and paintings but also a very nice modern art collection. Before reaching the modern part, we left the place before the lunch break and visited Augustines Museum, an ancient monastry very closeby. This museum is specialized in Gothic-Medieval sculptures and stone work exhibited inside this equally old monastry itself. After the Augustines we went back to Hotel d'Assezat to finish the modern part.

Our last target for today regarding the museums was the Les Abattoirs, the old slaughter house converted to one of the biggest contemporary museums in France. Since the building was on the side of river, in St-Cyprien we had the walk all the way to there a bit exhausting somehow. Despite the positive reviews in some guide books, it was a big disappointment for us. Exhibitions regarding the aborigines and primitive societies, but we did not have much patience left.

We went back to the city walking passing Pont des Catalanes, walking on Quai St-Pierre, watching the old and new electric tribunes on Garonne.

We visited Eglise de la Daurade, an equally unusual structure from Baroque times. We finally ended up in Place St-George where we ate later for dinner in Chez Emile.

As a summary these 1,5 days in Toulouse were full with churches and art with no time left for shopping, bookshops and FNAC!