Carcassonne (Nathanial)

Today we have driven through the ‘midi Pyrenees’ to a place called ‘Carcassonne’. This was recommended to us to visit, and I would do the same to anyone reading this. Carcassonne is a great town with a section of it in castle grounds restored to its medieval origins; it’s absolutely stunning, and it's situated in a mountain range to top it off.

Just about to enter the castle grounds

In here we visited a medieval torture museum, thinking this would be more up the boy’s street for entertainment. Oh my God!  If they don’t have nightmares tonight, I will eat my woolly hat.

The entrance to the torture museum. They didn't come out smiling like that.

What the Spanish inquisition did for torture was truly barbaric, how anyone could actually have thought up those devices is beyond me. They must have held meetings with critical staff and had ‘thought showers’ on how to inflict the most pain without killing someone. I wouldn’t have liked to have been taking those minutes. I wonder if they had biscuits?

We saw devices which cut off nipples, expandable tools which were made for breaking bones, used on both men and women and a helmet with a ‘gagging strip’ on it, which women who talked too much had to wear - me and the boys actually liked that one. There was even a saw to cut men in half from the crotch to the head, if they were found to be gay.

I think next time we will go to the knitting museum.

One of the streets in Carcassonne

From Carcassonne, we have just driven another 40mins in pitch black through the mountain range to an aire, we have no idea what our surroundings are like but I can’t wait to explore them in the morning. I’m hoping we are going to have a couple of days here, I do like being around mountains.

One of the many amazing sites driving through the midi pyrenees