The morning was cold – who in the hell suggested that we carry a minimum of clothes? The wind blasted us as we walked across the old bridge from the new city ot Carcassonne into La Cite - the medieval city. It screamed at us in broken French “what in the hell have you got ourselves into? What on earth are you doing here? – don’t you know even winter in Australia is warmed than it is here?” .
So what was it that kept us going as we climbed the hill to the entrance … it was without a doubt, the majesty of the 15 meter defensive walls and the 25 meter towers that were dotted along its length. From a distance and indeed from within the walls itself this is an impressive piece of history. The site is a credit to the early French government officials that established the historic monuments restoration organisation in the early 1800’s.
We think that preservation of our history is a recent phenomenon but the forethought of these people who as early as 1810 recognised that the state needed to invest heavily in the restoration of the historical sites is something that took me by complete surprise. La Cite was a restoration project that took almost 70 years from about 1820 to around 1890. The result is a stunning representation of how medieval communities defended themselves.
Did the wind really die down during in our visit to La Cite or was it just that we return across the bridge with a better understanding of why we needed to walk the walk to and from the Medieval City. What ever the reason the return back to the new city (founded in around 1600) was really quite pleasant.
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