I think I once went to Carcassonne as a young boy. I think I was there with my mum, dad and sister on a visit on the way back from a family holiday in Spain. But I want to return as an adult and look around.
About Carcassonne.
Carcassone is a French fortified city in the region of Occitania. It has been inhabited since the Neolithic age and is located in the plain of the Aude between historic trade routes, linking the Atlantic to the Mediterranean Sea and the Massif Central to the Pyrénées. Its strategic importance was quickly recognized by the Ancient Romans, who occupied its hilltop until the demise of the Western Roman Empire. In the fifth century, the region of Septimania was taken over by the Visigoths, who founded the city of Carcassonne in the newly established Visigothic Kingdom.
Its citadel, known as the Cité de Carcassonne, is a medieval fortress dating back to the Gallo-Roman period and was restored by the theorist and architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in 1853. It was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1997 because of the exceptional preservation and restoration of the medieval citadel. Consequently, Carcassonne relies heavily on tourism but also counts manufacturing and winemaking as some of its other key economic sectors.
I have a memory from when I was a young boy walking through Carcassone with my parents and sister when I was probably about 7 or 8 years old. As most young boys would have been, I remember being very bored and uninterested in all of the big walls and wanted to go so we could get to the beach. How things change as we get older. Carcassonne is now on my bucket list of places to visit before I die.