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| carcassonne, a medieval city
that has a history dating back to the 6th century b.c. |
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| more
2600 action. :)
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| our pseudo-guide and translator. |
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| the old walled city known as la cité. |
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| nearing the entrance of la cité. |
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| where you see grass, there used to
be water. the high stoned walls of the walled city were used as protection
against enemies. |
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| it looked neat, but i have no
idea what its significance is. |
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| there are two walls surrounding
the walled city, both of which have grown higher over time, one built
in the 3rd century and another in the 13th century. (or something like
that. :) |
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| cars were not something i expected
to see in the castle. |
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| nor did i expect a collection
of modern shops and restaurants. this doesn't look like a medieval city
to me! :) |
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| instruments de torture. |
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| gene and kim in the castle. |
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| the entrance into one of the
courtyards. there are two, a larger one for everyone which is where
this entrance leads and another smaller one which was restricted to
certain people. |
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| nice shot of one of the towers.
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| the weather here was considerably better than that of toulouse. |
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| heading off to lunch. |
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| at brasserie le donjon. |
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| the sunlight inside was a nice
effect. |
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| 18 of us in all visited the
city. |
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| kim and gene yet again. |
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| first. |
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| second. cassoulet toulousain --
again. |
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| third. |
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| outline of the castle. |
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| and yet another. ok, i
will admit i'm getting a bit tired here, but what else is there
to say really? |
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| i probably already have a shot
of this. |
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| walking towards one of the many
entrances in the castle. restoration efforts have kept the place in good shape
while still preserving much of its original design. |
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| another person on the tour taking
a photo. i saw her and her friend at the toulouse airport as i was getting
ready to fly back to sfo. |
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| entrance to er... chateau comtal? :) |
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| not originals obviously. |
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| the sky was great and so i had
to get it in the background. too bad i don't know what's in that tower. |
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| in the museum, couple
of heads with informative material written in french which would
have taken me too long to decode. i just looked around. |
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| a narrow circular descent
into who knows what. |
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| there were spectacular views
of the city from the castle. |
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| more random stuff that i
don't know about. there was probably a guide in english. i didn't
bother to use it though. ah well. |
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| latin stuff on a stone
tablet just like in the movies! translation, please? |
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| on the walls. |
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| more tablets. |
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| and yet another. i especially
like the asymmetry of this thing. it's pretty neat. |
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| more of the museum. |
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| close-up of the previous thing. |
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| a tomb. |
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| note that this guy's nose has
been chipped off. i overheard someone explaining the meaning of this.
i think they said that it's something that enemies like to do, chip
off people's noses. er, ok. :) |
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| la, la, la. |
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| three scary faces. |
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| and the scariest of them all. |
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| another "thing". these captions
are terrible. |
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| outside in the larger of the
two courtyards. |
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| this is where you'd place someone
to shoot arrows at enemies. |
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| and this was where you'd have lookouts
looking for new enemies to inform others to shoot arrows at. |
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| a view of the city from the castle.
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| light striking the castle. |
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| this is a pretty neat shot. |
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| and this is another. |
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| no handrail here which made this
particularly tricky to get down. |
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| performances are sometimes held here. |
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| our guide. she likes to say
"voila" a lot. |
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| the end of our tour. |
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| here's a final shot. the captions
were uninteresting, but hopefully the pictures made up for them. |
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| we checked out a nearby church while
we were. it's apparently a very french thing to do. |
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| pretty neat. |
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| i don't go to church, so i have
no idea how this compares with the usual.
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| a final shot inside the church. |
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| me, lost again, while trying
to find something that was open that day. |
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| and finally, to complete my
tour of the room service menu: filet mignon de porc aux poires et au
cassis (filet mignon with pears and black cuarants), craquant
caramel et noix (caramel and walnut crisp) and a half bottle of
the gaillac.
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