August 26 -- Carcassonne -- arriving at the walled city

.

It's hard to take pics of really big things, unless you are really far away.

This is really big.





The next two are the same towers as above, and they are a pair, first the top, then the middle......







Looking back toward the place where the first pic in this post was taken.





Less zoom.





More zoom (on the above).........





It's really big, and it's really old, too, or, at least, parts of it are.

This site has been inhabited for millennia.

I bet that if you'd arrived with a large amount of this footwear to sell, many moons ago, you could have named your price......






The dark specs in this pic are leaves blowing off the trees. (as always, click on a pic to embiggen)





Have I mentioned it was really hot there? And dry? And windy?





I read that the parts of the walls that have thin red stripes (of what looked to us like bricks) were Roman, if they had no arrow slits......









We really are noticeably higher than the surrounding landscape. No wonder this spot was a prized strategic location.





Inside the inner walls, now. We take a look at the church, but do not see an open door, so we stop for tea.









After tea, we continued our wander through the walled city. We noticed a piece of wood embedded in the wall (and wonder, again, where the tree grew, and what happened around it when it was growing).







??





Is this anachronistic, or what? On the other hand, I suppose there have always been inns here, and this is just the current version.......... Wondering what the inn will look like in another two or three thousand years..............

















We spotted these through a window. I think I read something about a museum of miniature models......

This is Paris's Notre Dame, I believe.




And this is Firenze's Duomo.





In order to facilitate chronological traverse of these posts, here is a link to the post that comes after this one.

.