They really wanted to get rid of the Cathars and a Stairway walk from Hell

The Cathars were a group of religious zealots during the 12th and 13th Century who were a very strict religious order whose beliefs contrasted with the Catholic Church. They were violently destroyed by the Church, and rather than agree to imprisionment or conversion, they stood their ground . Subsequently   they were burned alive.

This whole area, around Carcasonne, and the South of France is called "Pays Cathars", where they settled. One of the most famous strongholds where they lived was called Peyrepertuse, and it was a castle built into a rock formation high on a mountain.

We spent the first part of the morning at a charming town called Limoux, about 1/2 hour from Carcasonne.  We walked around and stumbled into the "marche", their market day. It was a  nice little town, with all the cobbled narrow streets, boulangers, patisseries, and cafes. We ended up eating lunch there.   I had an omelet with roquefort cheese in it, oh, delicious!  The real roquefort too.   We had an aperatif before lunch, the suggested one, which was a small glass of "blanchette", a white wine made from the grapes before they make it into champagne.  I liked it, it is very light, good for lunch.  (of course, the French drink wine all the time)     

After lunch, we drove to Peyrepertuse on a narrow, very narrow, curvy, very curvy road.  Beautfiul, but yikes, it is getting tiring!   Finally, we got there!   You have to walk up to the castle on these narrow, uneven, stone steps that are on the side of the mountain!    There are trees every so often to hang onto.  I don't know if the worse part was the uneven steps that were often very steep, or the drop off near by, or the mistral winds that were kicking up!  The winds were worse on the way down, which was somewhat fortunate, but I was hugging the right side of the steps, refusing to look anywhere but on the step I was walking on! It was quite a walk!    The castle was fascinating, once we got there, some of it has been restored.   I kept wondering why the Catholics would even bother to attack them, how the hell did they even get up there?

It's always amazing to me how old things are here and that they are preserved!   It is astounding, really, and is evident all over on our driving, we see parts of stone edifices everywhere, as well as grottos and caves.   This country itself is so old!

After the walk we returned to Carcasonne a different way, much, much easier and quicker.

We had dinner at a place near us that was allegedly Italian, although it wasn't.   Dan had Cassoulet again, this one was much better!  I just had minestrone soup, which was also excellent.  We began talking to the people at the next table, who were Italian.   It turns out, they were from a nearby town near the village we had stayed at in Italy! This is quite a coincidence because this village is very tiny and very remote!