August 26 --Carcassonne -- the rest of the day

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I came all the way across an ocean to see Really Old Stuff (at least, that was part of the reason), and I found it jarring to find the same sort of tacky plastic souvenirs you'd find at any fake "Ye Olde Whatever" thing in the USA. (I know, I need to get over myself, but......... These were popular, too. We saw several little boys who had them.)





Ok. Turning our backs on that.



Trumpet flowers. In the hot southern sun.





Now this is more like my idea of a souvenir! Wouldn't one of these be cool, if you were allowed to bring it home and it would be happy in your climate?



(Digression: Speaking of climate, I will note that Carcassonne (43.13 N) is a bit north of Ann Arbor (42.22 N). It is a much hotter and drier place, and, I have to conclude from all the functional exterior shutters, much sunnier. It feels a lot more like Texas than Michigan......... Puzzled............ End of Digression.)


















Love the differential use of the red and the gray, here, and in the archy-window pic above.....





Time for lunch.

Something else I found surprising was that there was excellent food available (along with cheeseburgers and fries). Maybe there is often excellent food in places which have plastic swords in the USA, too, but I've never noticed? Somehow I doubt it.

This is my lovely eggplant and tomato terrine. The darkest line is balsamic vinegar, as you might have guessed, and the red was red bell pepper (not hot). The purply spoonful is olives (tapenade? I did not detect fish, so maybe some other olive-y construction), and the green is avocado. Mmmmmm.





Here is my daughter's excellent duck confit, with potatoes. Mmmmmmmmmm.



Here is my daughter's take on this same day and this same lunch.



Before we venture back outside ... this is part of the floor in the ladies' room in the restaurant.





Right after lunch we spotted this. We have a popcorn connoisseur in the family; we should have tried this to see if it was extra good..........

They were making crepes, too, and had a vat of Nutella to put on them.......





This is across a courtyard from another side of the church.









We went inside.







Hot (it was nearly 100 F that day). Tired. Time to head down the hill.


Before we go, one more image. I'll have to paint you a word pic as I didn't take a digital one.

The "oldness" of Europe is striking, to those of us from places which have only recently been densely populated.

I am not aware of any sites that have been continuously inhabited for as long, in the USA. (There are, I believe, around 125 people who still live in the walled city.)

Up on the hill, in the walled city of Carcassonne, I saw a dad with a little kid on his shoulders.

I was struck by the thought of dads, carrying little kids, over that ground, back for generation after generation, century after century.


All those dads. Carrying all those little kids. In the same way.

Back, and back, and back in time.........

Gave me a shiver.



I chose the pics for this post, and only when I began to write about this next one did I notice the similarity between it and the previous.

Points, fancy shapes, colors, lights..............

From the sublime to the ... carousel.............









These are the same towers with the "surpised eye" archy windows, above, just under the hot pink flowers. I like that you can see right through the middle tower's windows to the sky behind.





This is the only pic I got that I think captures some of the ... creepiness ... we felt.

This huge plaza, empty, under the blazing late afternoon sun.........

This was not zoomed at all -- this space was immense. And empty, in a ... not-empty ... sort of way..............





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

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