Because our flight back to Heathrow would depart from Toulouse at 7:00am on Monday morning, we decided it would be best to drive to Toulouse on Sunday and stay overnight in a hotel.
We had no difficulty waking up on Sunday morning as the sound of the church bells of Frasquenet echoed through the narrow streets. The weather remained as unexciting as it had been for the length of our stay, but at least there was still no rain.
A final trip to the local shops was made for breakfast and some bottles of ‘Vin de Frasquenet’ to take home. Aurevoirs were exchanged with Michael and the other staff in his shop.
The car was loaded, the electricity turned off and the house was locked up. It was my turn to drive and forty minutes later we were parking outside the walls of Carcassonne.
The Cite had looked fantastically impressive at night, but as we approached it now, its massiveness was even more apparent, the outer walls stretching away on both sides, broken by huge towers capped with grey conical slate roofs, like a castle in a fairy tale.
I had noticed in some press articles that there was a running controversy, about whether these restored roofs, had originally been covered with the current grey slate or red clay tiles.
Once through the gates, we were in a narrow lane with souvenir shops lining both sides. The souvenirs included the usual postcards, guidebooks and low quality, poorly painted or transfer embellished plates. More unusually they also included, pieces of armour, crossbows and spiky metal balls attached to a truncheon like handle by a chain. I could not imagine these getting through customs into England, given their potential for inflicting serious injury.
Eventually we came across the castle itself, it would have been tremendously impressive on its own in a field, but here it was just a tiny part of the heavily fortified town. It was still immensely awe inspiring.
It was apparent that the cite of Carcassonne had been extensively commercialised, but it was overwhelming all the same.
Carcassonne
Eventually, having decided that Carcassonne required more than our couple of available hours to do it justice, we returned to the car and headed for Toulouse. An hour or so later, we paid our final toll fee and then headed for the centre with Mark taking on the role of map reader.
Following the signs to Blagnac, where the airport is, takes you on the Toulouse equivalent of London’s North Circular road, whereby you are left to decide where is the best place to turn off to the right, in order to head for the City centre.
We eventually parked in a car park, under the square at the Place du Capitole and set off on foot to find a hotel. An hour later we returned to collect the car, which we re-located to the car park of a modern but inexpensive hotel we had booked into, near the Rue de Bayard.
The rooms were tiny, but they were clean. After showering and donning fresh clothes, we headed back to the Place du Capitole, which had seemed to be a lively area.
We took a detour to look at the brick built Cathederal of St Sernin, though we didn’t go inside. Eventually after several sight seeing distractions, we reached our initial destination, Place de Capitole. From here we headed south along the Rue St Rome, which was lined with boutique style shops.
There seemed to be a surprising number of these shops selling wild west style clothing, though there were also a few which sold less useful but more interesting items, such as plastic bats, pictures of Marylin Munroe and coughing ashtrays.
When the shops ended we turned right, before heading north again, alongside the river Garonne. After brief visits to a couple of bars, we found ourselves back at the Place de Capitole, where we settled down at some café style tables, just inside the entrance of a large hall, which served as both a bar and a restaurant. We ordered more beer.
As the daylight faded into night and the hanging chandeliers lit up. The interior decor of the restaurant revealed itself. The walls and ceiling were painted with a wood effect, creamy brown colour. They were also generously adorned with a number of, what appeared to be Greek god’s heads.
Whether the aged appearance of the place was real or contrived was difficult to tell. This was our main topic of conversation for nearly an hour. Did the brown-ness came from two year old paint or decades of exhaled nicotine? It was hard to discern, but the pleasant ambience of the place, was reminiscent of a Viennese ballroom.
The great thing about the idea of the brown stained effect coming from nicotine, was the speculation about all those people, famous or otherwise, who had created it. Did they die of lung cancer? If not, how did they die? If they were still alive, where were they now?
On the other hand if the effect was purely designer created, whose lives or deaths had influenced the designer.
On balance we preferred the nicotine discussion, since this involved massive speculation about potential contributors and their associates. Of course Toulouse Lautrec, must have either directly contributed nicotine or have influenced the designer.
This fabulous atmosphere persuaded us to study the menu, which was placed in front of us by our barman.
This guy spoke good English, but had the good humour to pretend that we spoke good French. He was immediately likeable, because apart from looking like a French version of Robert DeNiro, he also seemed to have a slightly off the wall sense of humour. His attitude and the contents of the menu in turn, caused us to remain where we were, for the last meal of our short holiday.
Having consulted this guy who we nicknamed ‘Robert’, on the merits of certain offered dishes, he quickly became our waiter. He led us a few paces further into the restaurant, to a different table which was set for dinner.
Food and wine were ordered as our very patient friend ‘Robert’, explained some of the more obscurely named dishes. He recommended we try the Madiran wine, which we willingly did.
All the courses were excellent, but I was particularly taken with a small hot dish of scallops cooked with wine and mushrooms. The mushrooms were the dominant taste, somehow brought out by the white wine and scallops, or some other ingredient which I couldn’t detect. Never before had I tasted anything which came near to equalling that mushroom flavour.
With none of us having to drive, a second bottle of Madiran was ordered and drunk alongside Rosemary flavoured lamb cutlets, followed by desert and a selection of cheeses.
We guessed that the local theatres were emptying, because the restaurant started to fill up with people in smart evening dress.
The table to our right was taken by a petite lady, probably in her late fifties, who was very elegantly turned out, with a long body hugging black dress, elbow length black gloves and sparkling jewellery. She smoked her cigarettes from a long black cigarette holder, just like Marlene Dietrich in a 1930s movie, and was accompanied by a smart slender girl in her early teens.
This latest influx of theatre goers enriched the atmosphere of the restaurant even further. So it was with some reluctance, that after our coffee, we requested the bill.
Having done a quick mental calculation of how much we had spent, the bill seemed a little low. A rigorous examination revealed that we had only been charged for one bottle of wine, even though we had drunk two.
Since our waiter had looked after us so well and we wished him no ill, we called him over and owned up. He seemed to be stupified by our honesty and insisted we each have an Armanac on the house, to reward us for bringing the error to his attention.
Although we feared that the Armanac might have cost him more than the wine would have, we accepted his offer, glad of an excuse to linger longer in our surroundings. In the event I suspect that our tip was even more generous than it would have been, but for the additional warm spirit flowing in our blood.
We crossed the square to another bar for a final beer. Mark ordered “trois pressions s’il vous plais”, while I admired the beer mats. These mats had a particularly French look about them and I secreted a couple of them into my jacket pocket as souvenirs, when I thought nobody was looking.
We decided we could manage one more pression each, so I decided a visit to the Gents was required. When I returned Mark and Pete were ogling at a gorgeous, though rather broad shouldered lady, who was standing at the bar and ogling back at them.
This woman was dressed in a similar style to the one sitting next to us in the restaurant, but she could not have been described as petite, neither was she as mature.
She was surrounded by an entourage of friends and much giggling was taking place. Having visited Singapore’s Bugis street, some years before, I had already come across beauties who were able to wiggle their hips, more sexily than any real female ever could.
At first Mark and Pete refused to believe me, when I informed them that they had been smitten by a transvestite.
But a close study of the entourage revealed other so called females who were decidedly less feminine, than the one who had originally caught their attention. Finally they concurred with my opinion and we got up to leave.
We had not quite reached the door, when I spotted the barman running after us. I blushed with embarrassment when he caught up and presented me with a dozen pristine beer mats, to add to the slightly soiled ones I had just pilfered.
We were up at 5:00 the following morning and had returned the car to the hire company at the airport, before any of their staff were on duty. We left the keys at car hire counter and headed for the plane. We were all sitting at our desks in London, by the time our colleagues arrived to start the working week.
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