For my final day we went to visit the nearby town of Carcassonne, which is famous for having a medieval fortified citadel, the Cité de Carcassonne , which can be traced back 2,500 years, to the Gallo-Roman period. It’s been a Unesco Heritage Site since 1997.

We wandered around the citadel for a few hours, and we had lunch, the famous (so I was told, I had no idea at the moment) cassoulet, made with white beans, duck confit, sausages, pork and mutton, served in a cassole. I remember this as super heavy but I have this obsession to eat everything I’m served, so I finished it – maybe I shouldn’t have.

Placed we visited included the Château Comtal, the Counts’ Castle, dating from the 12th century…

… the walls…

… The former cathedral of Carcassone, the Basilica of Saints Nazarius and Celsus…

The Église Saint-Nazaire, the church of Saint Nazaire…

… the Porte Narbonnaise, one of the castle gates…

… and the Cimetière de la Cité, the graveyard.

After that, we headed back to the train station and back to Toulouse as the following day I was flying back home, and France said goodbye with a neat sunset.