Our morning was very rainy, so after another amazing breakfast at Domaine Caraman, we stayed by the fire and chatted with William for an hour or so. He shared his story of buying the farm and renovating it, with family in tow over 30 years ago. By noon, the clouds lifted, so we drove to Narbonne. Off we went, through Carcassonne and the old Cite, with a stop in Trebes. Trebes is on the Canal du Midi and has one of the few canal bridges over another river. It is an engineering feat! We walked along the Canal for half an hour or so, running into a Norwegian man going and coming. We had a nice conversation with him about his life in Norway near the Arctic Circle as well as his winter home in Trebes.
We drove on to Narbonne, a city of 40,000 people, with an infrastructure that could serve 250,000. It is a beautiful city with elaborate buildings and an exquisite cathedral, St. Just, started in the early 1300's but never completed. A canal passes through the center of Narbonne, with walking paths on either side and barges and pleasure boats moored. Narbonne was an active city in Roman times, as it was on the Mediterranean. It silted up in the 1400's and is no longer a coastal city. We bought patisseries and sat in the park for a bit to eat them as the sun peaked through the clouds. A nice day!
We made one more stop this afternoon, at Abbaye de Fontfroid, about 15 km southwest of Narbonne. We arrived just as they had closed to visitors, but that didn't stop us as we went up the ramp for handicapped visitors and wandered around for a few photos. Abbaye de Fontfroid is built of red stone and is in very nice condition, probably due in part to still being an active abbaye.
