September 2011 - Spain and France - Day 5 : The GT Twins meet up again (165 miles)

It’s around 7:30am on Tuesday 6th; we’re in Carcassonne and the day started with my meeting up with Dave and Janet (who live north of Bordeaux) at their hotel in Tarbes. The plan was to avoid the motorway and travel on D roads to Carcassonne. All in all we had a really good ride. The weather was kind and we travelled at a brisk but not “fast” pace (David and Kelsey (a couple of an elderly BMW F650 single) would have appreciated it; well at least appreciated it more!)

The route took us through beautiful forest and countryside with, by and large, excellent “GT style” roads. For one reason or another, we all decided to skip lunch which, I found surprising for me, and we continued to Carcassonne , stopping briefly by a huge hole on the rock face where a river rush and through which a small tunnel had been constructed.

We arrived at Carcassonne at around 3:30pm; the Sat Nav guiding us directly to the hotel entrance :-) It was a simple (overpriced) but adequate “tourist” hotel; which was fine as we were immediately handed a map of the area and directions on how to find the mediaeval walled city of Carcassonne. Simply following the tourists was clue enough and, at the entrance to the City were entertainers which was probably a clue to what was inside. Sure enough, shop after shop selling tourist-tat; bars selling beers at prices to make your head spin. Nevertheless, we entered and had a complete tour; including a couple of beers and a sandwich; the price of which was enough to force a hasty retreat from the battlements and walk 2km into the “real” Carcassonne, where we found a proper square with bars and restaurants all around. However, being a Monday - and France has some peculiar customs in this regard - almost everything was fermé ! So, we sat outside in the balmy early evening sunshine and Dave ordered some Tapas (we are near Spain after all!) and some rosé wine. This went down a treat and discussed how disappointed we were in Carcassonne as a whole.

We had planned to spend tomorrow morning (Tuesday 6th) “chilling” in Carcassonne; but the plans were quickly revised and we decided to leave and head for the sea - the beautiful Mediterranean around Perpignan. The weather forecast was still looking good so sun, sea and shell fish sounded pretty good to us all.

So, we agreed to be ready at our m’cycles, at 8:30am. We have agreed that Dave needed his ablutions before setting out so Jane bought fruit juice and biscuits to help him on his way the next morning :-) !!

It’s now 7:50am so I shall upload this to the “blog” but the pictures will have to wait until tonight where we shall again be in the SE Pyrenees.