Ode to a Board Game

I can't believe it's taking me this long to finish recapping my trip to Europe, almost a year-long process. It's like school is busy or something! It's great to look back and remember a fabulous summer, although I think the details are slipping me a bit.

Being the nerds that we are, upon discovering a board game that my sister and I like to play called Carcasonne, was based on an actual place in France, we had to go there. I don't feel like explaining the game right now, but it's based on a medieval city in the south of France, and it turns out this place has a pretty interesting history. We (and by "we" I really mean "I") made a bit of a travel oops on the way to Carcasonne - rookie mistake I guess. With most of the places we went, I didn't need a reservation for the train because I had a global Eurail pass. Apparently France is different. Catherine had her own ticket, so I just sat beside her and figured I'd stay there until someone else claimed the seat as their's, in which case I'd find another vacant one. I happened to slip over to use the washroom just at the time the ticket-checker was checking tickets, so my pass didn't get checked. Later along the trip, some guys came on the train with tickets for where I was sitting, so I just got up and went into a dining car to find an empty seat. It was there that a ticket checker came to check my ticket and started yelling at me in French, speaking really fast. My French is not so good anymore. I can still read it pretty well, but having a conversation is a lot harder. Anyways, turns out you need to buy a reservation on all French trains even with a train pass. Oops.

Carcasonne

Carcasonne is an old fortified medieval city in the south of France. We only spent a day here, but were able to explore the city and eat some delicious French food. We also met a teacher from England there travelling by herself, so she joined us for this part of our trip. We all stayed at a tiny hostel about 20 minutes outside of the city (the closer ones were super expensive), and so the hostel owners gave us rides to and from the city and train station for a small fee. The hostel was converted from an old castle. It was really small, had a narrow, slanted staircase, and a bit of an ominous look about it, but they also had cheap sangria, so we enjoyed a good nightcap each night.

In the city of Carcasonne, they had a jousting show, which I thought was going to be lame. It wasn't cheap, so I reluctantly went with Cath and our English friend because they really wanted to go. It was AWESOME! Well worth it! They made it really authentic (as far as I know) and it wasn't as fake looking as I expected. The guys were super talented on their horses, doing different stunts. The dialogue was all in French, but you could still kind of understand what was going on for the most part. Very cool. If you are as crazy and nerdy as us to visit this place, go to the jousting show. It is not lame :).

This is a cool place to check out, but one full day was definitely enough time here. I don't know what else we would have done here. We are a bit fast-paced, especially with museums, but I think 2 days would be plenty to see everything, even if you're slower.

See you in Paris!