Carcassonne

What a beautiful city, whenever we drive over the brow of the hill and see La Cite in the distance it always takes my breath away; it's like a scene from a fairy tale. We have visited a few times now, so there are few surprises there for us. We did have a good look around although it was ridiculously hot, 37.5C at one point. Daisy was ok for a short while, I think the heat got to her and she lost it with every dog that she saw.
I'd love to spend some time in the museums and find out the history of the city, it was originally a Gaulish settlement, then a roman camp, a Saracen castle and probably lots of others types of things inbetween. I particularly like the legend (which is supposed to be false) of Dame Carcas, a Saracen princess who was held siege in the castle by Charlemagne for 6 years. When the inhabitants of the castle were down to their last food, she ordered that a pig was fed with their remaining grain. The pig was then thrown over the wall towards the soldiers. The pig split open on impact and Charlemagne and his army thought that the city still had lots of food spare so gave up the siege. There was supposedly no Lady Carcas, but it's still a great story.
Today I bought an engraving of Raphael Augustinus Kleweta who lives in the Aude, it's an image of the village of Le Somail, with a magical realism to it which I love. The moon is a sleeping lady, there are books flying through the sky, an owl holding a key, paper boats floating on the river under the Pont Saint-Marcel.
We came back to the mountains for some fresh air, it's a beautiful evening.