Perpignan to Carcassonne

I spent two days riding 150km from Perpignan to Carcassonne, then had a rest day taking in the sights of this fortified medieval town and castle.

Before I get started- this video pretty much sums up my language experience in France so far. (Especially the “Baguette!” and the “uhhh, no”, but without the cute girls!)

I got out of Perpignan pretty quickly. For some reason there wasn’t a lot that I saw that I liked there, maybe I just didn’t push below the surface enough.

It took a while to get my routing sorted because there was a big motorway going the way I wanted, which means that the old highway is usually ok to ride on. Not in this case- that was closed to bikes too. So I ended up having to detour quite far to the east, but I got there in the end.

Here’s one of the quiet roads I managed to find:

After a while I felt like mixing it up a bit so took a left and headed into the hills away from the coast. I passed through this little town:

Out the other side I was following a river that was surrounded by vineyards (although the vines had been pruned pretty far back (from my limited viticultural knowledge)).

Somehow the route I took meant I didn’t really have to climb very much which was good. I rolled down into the medium-sized town of Lezignan-Corbieres where I stayed at the nice Municipal campsite with free wifi!

I’ve been asked a bit what I’m doing for food. At the moment I’m making the most of baguettes for breakfast and lunch, and then cooking pasta for dinner. Here’s Indie with a baguette strapped to the back:

I knew that the Canal-du-Midi was nearby, so headed north until I hit it. It’s very nice, and it’s possible to ride along the tow-paths (although I didn’t try with my fully laden bike- maybe if I only had 2 panniers). Here’s a photo of it:

Someone was asking for a photo of me (apparently the daily photo isn’t enough), so here you go:

I kept riding and made it to Carcassonne, which is shown here from the SW side (after I’d given up trying to work out how to get in!)

I checked into the youth hostel that’s in the middle of the fortified city for two nights. So today’s been a rest/errand day. I finally managed to find some fuel for my stove (luckily I didn’t buy the stuff called White Spirits- it’s quite different to what we call white spirits in NZ- here you’re after Essence C). So tomorrow night I’ll be able to crank my cooker for the first time (instead of my new little canister stove).

Tomorrow I head towards the Rhone River. I’ll go through Beziers, Montpellier, Nimes, Avignon, Orange and up to Lyon. Then it’s through Grenoble to Chamonix and into Switzerland! The Actual Route page is up-to-date, and if you’re lucky I might even upload a new Self Portrait video!

Here are a couple of photos from Carcassonne, but I really recommend you check out the gallery here.