Finally, the last of the last. Carcassonne.

Believe it or not (I don’t think I believe it myself), but I’m about to write the last post on our Eurotrip2016. Took a lot of time, much more than I anticipated, but it’s here. Well, almost. I’m just starting to write it, after all. 

For the last few posts on the topic, we’re already on our way up north. Back home, that is. Having seen parts of France, Northern Spain, Portugal, Southern Spain and Gibraltar, we started our way back up. Through Granada, Cordoba, Avila, Segovia we got to Andorra and after crossing the French border, we got to Carcassonne. At first, we wanted to spend the night somewhere in the neighbourhood and hit the town and the castle in the morning, but it turned out we got there early enough to still see it on that particular day. Since the kids already wanted to head back home, that seemed like a good idea. 

We parked the car and had a good look at the medieval town from the other side of the river. It looked impressive. We crossed the bridge and started walking up to the town walls. It was as I could remember from many moons back – crowded. 

 

First, we walked to the church. We got inside. It looked deserted, but full of mystery at the same time. Or maybe that’s why it felt that way. Then we walked along the town walls towards other parts of the town. We had nothing in mind, nothing in particular. We just wanted to see it. To touch it. To walk the narrow streets, to see the town from the boardgame we play. And that’s exactly what we did.

We didn’t get into the castle itself. We didn’t feel like standing in line to get there. And none of us wanted it desperately to try and convince the others to change their minds. Instead, our kids took us to… 

 

Drumroll (yes, that requires drumrolls, as even in my wildest dreams I couldn’t imagine that with my kids, as young as they still were, I would visit…)… Torture Museum. Yup, you read it right. It was a museum dedicated to all (or at least many) of the tortures that were associated with witchcraft. The accusations, the trials and the tortures. All that stuff. Sure, I got some new ideas of how to torture my husband (that I couldn’t imagine were even possible), sorry hun. I haven’t used them yet, though (for now, my own ideas seem to be enough, thank you very much). But honestly, it was horrible. I never thought people came up with so many ways and so many utensils to hurt other people. And just because, for no real reason. And the kids asking questions "how was that used" made my head hurt, my imagination running too fast and more often than not, I had to lie not to tell them the truth or simply to divert their attention. It is located in nice buildings, though, and some parts were really interesting. I hated the "garden" part of the exhibition the most.

Right after that, making sure there was nothing more we wanted to see or do in Carcassonne, we were headed for our last night, last campsite in France. It was the second time during this whole trip that we had trouble finding a free spot to sleep. We finally found one, in the middle of nowhere. It was big, well organised, everything ok, apart from the fact that... well, I'm old ;) there was a party till 2 a.m. And it was so loud that I couldn't hear my own thoughts. Kids must have been exhausted after all the sightseeing, though, as they slept all the way through the noise. The next day was a long drive. Southern parts of France were crowded, the sky was black with clouds, at times it was raining very heavily. We got to Germany, near Freiburg, where we spent the night. We planned to spend the last night somewhere closer to Polish border. But once we got near Berlin, the kids said that they can sleep in the car if only we promise to drive straight home. So we stopped right before the border for a longer break (like almost two hours). The kids had a good run, we rested, stretched, had coffee, did everything to be ready for next few hours behind the wheel. But we made it. We got home around 1 a.m. With the kitchen renewal not finished yet. Exhausted. Sad that the trip was over. But happy to be back home. 

Yup, that's it. That's it for our Eurotrip2016. So many things happened since then. It feels more than just 2,5 years ago...