Carcassonne and the book 'Citadel' - the Kate Mosse tour

Tuesday 24 June

Carcassonne and the book 'Citadel' - the Kate Mosse tour

It stopped raining during the night, thank goodness, there was quite a bit of activity in the early hours to clear drains and when we woke the floods had receded.  It left quite a mess though, the patio and paths around the house were covered in debris and the road had a few more pot holes and gravel and mud strewn over it.

Rachel had to concentrate on getting Hannah and Jasper in the car and picking up Penelope from her friends place, so David and I did what we could to tidy up in the half hour before we needed to get our bus and metro to the railway station.  

We missed the 8.30 65 bus, but the 63 followed soon after and as we were about to get on the driver spoke rapid French to the other lady waiting to get on, and lit up a cigarette and got off the bus, had a chat to another bus driver who pulled up behind, and I though OMG the bus drivers are on strike!!  However after 10 mins or so he climbed back in, started up the engine and we were on our way.  We learned later that the street one up from Rachel was badly flooded and the buses could not access the terminal, so they had to turn around at our stop.  We arrived at the station in good time and had a coffee while we waited to see what platform our traIn to Carcassonne was leaving from.  

When things go well in France they go very well indeed.  We had a nice double seat with two empty seats facing us all the way, loads of leg room and such a smooth ride.  

Lovely rolling countryside, so vast and so much of it, mostly wheat, corn and the budding sunflowers, and of course in some areas vines for as far as the eye can see. 

 Nothing much wrong with the world from here!

This is the way to travel with your bike on a train!

We rolled into Carcassonne on time at 11.30am, and as we had been here on our last trip it was familiar to us.  

A boat had just come through the lock and the canal and city looked picturesque in the sunshine.  We found our hotel straight away and checked in, we were very early, but the room was ready so they gave us our key/card and we were able to freshen up and leave our luggage before setting out to explore.   

The Terminus Hotel

Our hotel is called the Terminus Hotel and dates back to July 1914 (quite young really in comparison with the medieval town on the hill).  It was a grand old lady in its time and has recently been restored to its former glory.  

The reception area taken from the stairs which 'sweep' down either side.

The lounge area

In 2004 Jean Paul Schaeffer bought the hotel and added it to the chain of "Hotels de Soleil".  It is protected by the "Batiments of France" with the help of a plan of safe-guard and development.

Looking down the staircase from the third floor

One of the main reasons for coming to Carcassonne was to identify areas described in a book called 'Citadel' by Kate Mosse, both David and I have read this book recently and it is one of a trilogy, I am now reading Labyrinth which has been made into a movie.  It essentially follows the lives of two sisters during the latter part of WW2 and the German invasion of France.  They were part of the resistance movement and it is quite a compelling read, if somewhat brutal at the end.  They and their friends and family all lived in and around Carcassonne so we photocopied the map from the book and followed their trail of events around the city.  

The Kate Mosse Tour:  (her words are in italics)

Starting with the station

Gare Carcassonne where Sandrine failed to recognise Max, bloodied and without his glasses on his way to the concentration camp at Le Vernet.

The Terminus Hotel was the Nazi officer garrison in 1944.

We walked up the main shopping street rue George's Clemenceau that leads up to the City.  Half way up we turned right into rue de Verdun, and came across Cafe Saillon on the corner. 

This was where Raoul met poor Cesar. Much later desperately worried about Sandrine being arrested, Marianne took a chance and spoke publicly to Robert Bonnet.

We decided that this would be a good place to have lunch, they were a bit crowded, but after a drink we were shown to a table outside and had a very good salad.

At the corner of Chartran and Verdun there's a lovely bakers shop that looks like it hasn't changed since Sandrine cycled past.

We crossed rue Aime Ramon, he is the unsung hero in Citadel, a real life resistant who died on 19 August 1944, like some of my fictional characters, a victim of the defeated Nazi's spite.  Further down Aime Ramon is the police station where Sandrine unwisely - and against her sisters advice - gave her name and address.  Luckily for her, the officer - could it have been Ramon? - threw it away.

We could see the Cathedral Saint-Michel and carried on down to take a better look, it was being renovated so didn't get the chance to look inside.  The Cathedral is where the fanatic Leo Authie came to confess and then shot the priest after absolution!!  

Boulevard Barbes

From the cathedral we walked along Boulevard Barbes, this is where resistance traitor Sylvere Laval set the treacherous explosives that meant that Raoul became a hunted man.  The little courtyard where the bomb went off is now a memorial to the Nazi capitulation.  

Jardin du Calvaire (Calvary Gardens)

Raoul needed somewhere to hide. He couldn't go to Sandrine - they barely knew one another at that point.  He eventually hid in the Calvary Garden, a sombre walled sculpture park containing fourteen representations of the Stations of the Cross.

Entrance to Jardin du Calvaire 

Leaving the Calvary Garden, it's only a step to Boulevard Marcou where several interior scenes were filmed for Labyrinth in a wonderful old-fashioned townhouse.  

By coincidence, there's a white stone monument to the French Resistance close by in Place Davilla and a magnificent bronze statue commemorating the dead of 1870.  This corner of town is a tapestry of grief.

White stone Monument - The Resistance : these a fighters died for France

Bronze statue commemorating the dead of 1870 (the Franco-Prussian War).  Several commemorative plaques have also been added.

As David and I studied our tour notes and map a lovely French gentleman came up and tried to give us directions, he took the map out of David's hands (not even I dare to do that!) and turned it round and round, as you do, but trying to tell someone so kind that you don't need any help and can we have our map back please, talking different languages, was proving difficult!  So charming, so with a shrug he went on his way with lots of "Merci, Merci, aurevoir ...."

From there we retraced our steps down Boulevard Marcou taking a little detour down Rue du 24 Fevrier 1848 (the start of the French Revolution) to the Cemetery of Saint-Michel.  

This is the tomb of the 'Bonnet' family - could there be a connection to Robert Bonnet? It's so hard to separate fact from fiction.

Inside there are dozens and dozens of family tombs, some owned 'in perpetuity' and some not. 

Sandrine's surname was 'Vidal', she was fictional, but .........

Towards the southern end is a very orderly section of war graves - tidy monuments engraved with crosses, stars and crescents.

And there is a statue of a war-like guardian angel.  It once belonged in Place Gambetta but somebody moved it, just before the Nazi withdrawal, perhaps to keep it safe, I'm glad they did.

We crossed over by the Army Barracks and saw the Bastide from a new vantage point. 

We finished our tour there for the day and made our way back via Place de General de Gaulle.

Through the Portal of the Jacobins 

And through the town down to our hotel.  Maybe not everyone has read Kate Mosse, but she gave us the opportunity to see parts of Carcassonne today where 'real' people live and it was a fascinating exercise, with the rest of the discovery to look forward to tomorrow.

The beds were nice and soft, and the furniture was the original, probably antique!