35. The Last of the Canal du Midi. Part 2

We arrived in Carcassonne on the weekend, and the first time I picked up my camera was on Sunday as we walked around the old city of the Bastille.  We didn't go to La Cite, the huge medieval fortress because we had been there in 1998, and I had hurt my knee jumping off the boat, onto a jetty thing, with a rope.  I wasn't walking well in Carcassonne, and it has got worse since.  So we didn't traipse over too many cobblestones, or scramble over too many stone ramparts or step up too many narrow medieval streets jammed with tourists.  We contented ourselves with the old city of Carcassonne, built some time after the Crusades when there was less war and more ...... well, city building, I guess!

It seems the old towns all have Les Halles - the food halls.  In pre-supermarket days these food halls sold everything.  Now, they only sell the freshest local produce and leave the groceries, and all the rest, to the supermarche.

This was a fabulous old building shell refitted in very modern glass and stainless steel - but still looking "old".  This was Sunday noon and there were only two stores open.

One was the bar, for drinks and coffee after church ...........

...... and the other was the charcuterie,  for anything meaty and fresh for Sunday lunch with your (also fresh) baguette..

And the other part of the historic Les Halles building turned out to be..........

......... the children's library.  The quotation on the glass says " It is a blessing on the people, deeper than themselves, to be immersed in their culture".

Right next door to the library was this old, old church.  Hemmed in now by buildings all around ......

And after the old, old church ... about 1500 metres of pedestrian walk ... leading you to

the square. Lots of space, plenty of places to sit, a fountain to keep you cool, lots of shady trees .........

The French do town squares, and chairs and coffee and drinks better than any other place in the world .........

This is the Terminus Hotel, right on the canal dock in Carcassonne. Canals used to be very busy commercial places.

And this is the person of the Capitainerie of the Port of Carcassonne.  Paul says I can't call her the Capitain, but she surely is.  A real go-getter.  

She speaks to every boat that comes through the lock into port and asks them if they want to stay; tells them how much it costs ($43 AUD for two days) and the services available - showers, toilets, water, power, washing machines (in other words - heaven!).  If you take up her invitation to stay (and who wouldn't) she tells you which dock to tie up to, and walks over and catches your rope. Wow!  

She then invites you (no, on second thoughts, she invites the bloke, to come to her office where he pays and gets a shower code and a tourist map for the wife.  What a service!  Go girls!  I say girls, because this seems to be a job share arrangement -10 hours per day, 7 days a week - and the other women are equally as thorough, calpable and pleasant. Go girls!

Here we are in the Port of Carcassonne.  That's us, the little one ......  Behind us is the Capitainerie and the facilities block.

And here is our Person of the Capitainerie again .... this time at about 7.30pm,  She is leaving a note on the door (she whips sticky tape out of the back of the jeans) of a boat that has slipped into the mooring area from the opposite end to the lock. Everyone pays here!  No free loaders tolerated!

You can see how busy the dock became in the time between the last two photos.

And then it was time to leave Carcassonne and head back downstream (thank goodness) to Homps.  We had three days to get back.  The weather was getting quite warm and the sunshine on the canal was lovely.  Here are some photos of the down-hill run.

The last two photos are of the lock of the two young, enterprising women - again.  I had time to snap this pic because the lock-keeper was serving drinks and snacks to her customers in the shade of the bower, while four boats waited in the lock for her to press the appropriate buttons.  

Whoever claimed free enterprise was dead? Go girls!