Saturday, May 26, 2007

Those damn vegetarians

Carcassone
After leaving Dordogne, we stopped in Albi to say farewell to our friends (until they come to Amsterdam). Albi had a nice museum for the artist Henri Tolouse-Loutrec. You’ve probably seen some of his work, he was famous for his lithograph posters for the Moulin Rouge.

After dropping TJ and Michelle off, we made our way to Carcassone. This fortress dates back to Roman times, and was once the center of a group of “renegade” Christians called Cathars. I had never heard about them until this, but apparently they believed in reincarnation and were vegetarians. They also, important to the Catholic church, were very anti-materialistic. The Catholics wiped out the area during the inquisition, with the help of the French king who wanted the land. Oh, and there’s a cool board game by the same name. The old fortress is named “Le Cite”, and the town below was where the expelled Cathar populace was forced to settle.


We managed to stay the night within the walls of “Le Cite” in a cute B&B, and had the city all to ourselves that evening. There was also a Jaguar rally that stayed the night, I of course got a little excited.


Trip Map

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