Place Carnot, Carcassonne

We left our apartment at 10:00 am and dragged our bags through the streets of Carcassonne's Bastide in search of breakfast. The girl at the tourist office had recommended a café on Saturday and marked it on the map, but we couldn't find it anywhere near where her X was. Instead, we followed our instinct and made our way to Place Carnot which we'd established online is considered to be the heart of the Bastide. Sure enough, we got ourselves a nice breakfast in a café there, where we sat and watched our waiter perform his daily chore of setting out tables and chairs in the centre of the Square.

We'd spied an inviting Bar sign on the far side of the square during breakfast and made a bee-line for that. The weather was doing as it had done in Toulouse yesterday, with patches of sunshine followed by overcast moments and some rain, but we soldiered on for a final couple of al fresco beers before moving off to the Dome, where we planned to get a bus to the airport. We'd got the timetable, and calculated that we had time to grab a quick bite of lunch first. The handiest place to the bus stop was closed, so we ended up in a restaurant on the nicest open space we'd found in Carcassonne. We were too tight for time to catch the bus, so we decided to sit back and enjoy our lunch and get a taxi instead. The place got busier and busier during our time there, and was patronised mainly by locals, so we congratulated ourselves on having found the ideal spot.

It's only a short distance to the airport (indeed, one online comment told us that 'the more adventurous could even manage to walk there'), the taxi arrived promptly at the restaurant, and we ended up in plenty of time for the bag drop procedure. We retired to the bar for a leisurely beer until we saw the incoming plane arrive, made our way through security, and boarded the flight for Dublin, arriving home at 4:30 pm after a really great and varied trip. Collioure was the undoubted highlight, but we also had a grand time in Lyon to begin with, and the day-trip to Toulouse turned out to be a lovely bonus.

I've said it before, and I'll repeat it: the railways in France are fantastic! We took six train journeys, all of which were wonderful — on time, reasonably priced, fast (even those which weren't officially high-speed), and comfortable. France can certainly teach poor old Ireland a thing or two when it comes to rail travel. When it works as well as this, it really is a great way to get around.

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It will take me a while to wade through all the photos and put together some Flickr albums. In the mean time Blip coverage of the trip begins here.