Carcassonne: A Medieval Play-Pen

I lived in a castle. My life is complete. There were several sword shops within walking distance. I have lived my dream and it was everything as amazing as I would have expected it to be. These are the thoughts that fondly run through my mind whenever I think of being in Carcassonne for two days, it's that ridiculously amazing to me. There were musicians in the restaurants, there were musicians in the streets, there was a man in a suit of armor balanced on a small pole, it was all so wonderfully bizarre.

And yet there was still so much to learn from this place. Taking a tour of the main keep of the castle, we got to walk around some of the walls and learned of the history of the walled city, considering it had been occupied since all the way back to Roman times, up until it was taken by the visigoths in the 400's, exchanged hands a few times until the Cathars were fairly well established inside. The Cathars were then smoked (or rather, sieged) out of the city during the Albigensian Crusades in the 1200's, which is a similar story for every Cathar city.

Hundreds of years later, the city has been reconstructed based on one man's research and understanding, creating a modern day Carcassonne that is, as far as scanning has shown, pretty darn close to what the original looked like. His vision resulted in some of the best memories I have of not only this trip, but of my entire life up to this point.