Camille and her husband take their children Jules and Eva to Carcassonne for a 100% knight and knightess experience!
My son Jules dreamed of visiting Carcassonne so for his birthday, we decided to make him happy and go with my daughter Eva and my Loulou. On the agenda: a medieval weekend. We booked a small hotel at the foot of the Cité de Carcassonne and off we went…
In order to get into the atmosphere straight away, we started with a guided tour. It was great and very clear. The guide told a lot of anecdotes and the children loved it. Dame Carcas, to the right of the Levis Bridge, fascinated the children, especially when they learned that it was she who saved the city through a trick. When the city was besieged by Charlemagne, Dame Carcas threw a pig full of food over the ramparts to make him believe that the city still had plenty of food. Discouraged, Charlemagne’s army broke camp and Carcassonne was saved.
On our side, we regained our strength over a good Cassoulet. Loulou was in charge, he had found us a small restaurant with a view on the towers of the medieval city. He had prepared everything and if you had seen Jules’ face when the waiter brought a huge cake with 8 candles. He was in heaven!
In the afternoon, after the guided tour, we had booked
I’ll give you a hint: a “heraldry” workshop for Jules in the company of Loulou (children’s activities must be done in the presence of an adult). An activity “between men”, it feels good. Jules learned a lot about the symbols used by knights, and then he was able to draw his own coat of arms on a shield. He was so proud when he left with it, he showed it to everyone!
With Eva, we had an afternoon with the girls and we chose the workshop “headdress making and medieval dances”. She made her own Princess headdress. Needless to say, she chose fuchsia and lots of sparkly jewels 😉 When we got back, we had a lot of fun teaching the boys the medieval dance steps we had learned.
We admired the sunset on the ramparts of the City while drinking a well-deserved aperitif. Ah the life of a knight, we are not used to it anymore !!!!! The children were delighted and so were we. It was really magnificent. Small dinner in a super restaurant of the City, then digestive stroll on the ramparts and in the lices, always in headdress of princess and shield with the arm 😉 They slept with their accessories at the end of their bed!
The next morning, we had breakfast in a café on the banks of the
Then we climbed to the top of the bell tower of Saint Vincent’s church. 232 steps but well worth the effort to see the City of Carcassonne, the Pyrenees and the Black Mountain. In fact, it’s not far at all and it took us barely 30 minutes to get up there, passing through pretty streets with shimmering colours and then we took some great photos with the Medieval City in the background. The view is really beautiful.
After a quick hello to our friend Dame Carcas, we continued to explore all the little cobbled streets and found a nice restaurant. On the menu: fried sausage and Catalan cream. Simple, delicious and effective.
Jules needs to let off steam all the time, so he chose the “Knight’s course and sword fighting” workshop. He came back very happy because he had learnt techniques to attack but also to defend himself.Eva took the medieval cooking workshop. Eva took the medieval cooking workshop, where she learned how to make “hypocras”, the drink of the Lords, and spiced happiness biscuits. Happiness is exactly what our Chevalier weekend was like.
