Hello to all. My wife and I are visiting relatives for Xmas/New Year in London and Belfast. We have been to Europe in Jan/Feb previously, visiting London,Belfast,Paris, Milan, Venice and Verona. So this trip we are planning to try and see some more small to medium towns and spend much less time in big cities. We are only in our early planning stages but Carcassonne has come up a number of times as a nice place to visit and as we are wanting to visit friends who live near Bordeaux, we thought it would make a good end point for our Europe journey. I have two questions that I would like help with...before I ask them our journey is taking shape like this.
London-Bruges-Cochem or Berlin-Tubingen or Rothenburg-Fussen and probably into Austria (Innsbruck or a couple of smaller surrounding towns like Hall or Zell).
1. We will be travelling by train to Austria...what are the options for getting from somewhere like Innsbruck to Carcassonne?
2. What is Carcassonne like in Jan (approx 15th). Is it a town that does just as well in winter as it does in other seasons and are most places still open. As you can imagine, Jan is high/peak season in Australia but I believe a lot of places in Europe close or ease off in winter?
Thanks in advance, Will
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Firstly, Carcassonne %26quot;international%26quot; airport is rather small ! Only Ryanair flies there and winter services are reduced. Current routes are :
Carcassonne - Frankfurt Hahn
Carcassonne - Edinburgh
Carcassonne - Charleroi
Carcassonne - Cork
Carcassonne - Dublin
Carcassonne - East Midlands
Carcassonne - Liverpool
Carcassonne - Shannon
Carcassonne - Stansted
Carcassonne - Bournemouth
The budget flight market is rapidly changing, and the winter flight routes and schedules won%26#39;t be known until mid summer.
Carcassonne is on a rail route which goes pretty close to Toulouse Beziers, Montpellier, Nimes, and Marseille airports which have a greater choice. Full routings at the-languedoc-page.com/tourism/languedoc-tou…
The Carcassonne line does not yet have dedicated TGV track, so a journey from Paris would take around 3 hrs to Montpellier - then around 90 mins Montpellier - Carcassonne.
Attractions in Carcassonne will be open, though with reduced hours. Some of the shops selling tourist junk may be closed. Some restaurants may be taking their annual holidays.
Tourist office site in English : carcassonne.org/Carcassonne_EN.nsf/vueTitre/…
Weather is changeable in winter, but expect clear skies 10C-20C by day and 0C-10C overnight.
Visiting Carcassonne in winter is a better idea than having to queue behind all the tourists in summer !
Peter
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Carcassonne is worth a trip at anytime of the year. Bear in mind that you will be in Europe in mid winter. It is cold everywhere and the days are short. Carcassonne will be no exception. Bring lots of warm clothes. There is no easy route from Austria to Carcassonne. But you could organise an interesting route with some stopovers in other parts of Europe. For example, Austria to Switzerland. Geneva to Avignon by train (one day) Avignon to Carcassonne by train (one day). Carcassonne to Bordeaux by train (one day). The Swiss and French train are excellent and well heated. Ryanair is the only airline company coming in and going out of Carcassonne. But be careful; Ryanair is a budget price European airline company and you are limited to 15kgs of luggage plus 10kgs of hand luggage per person. They are very happy if you are over the limits as they charge a fortune for excess baggage.This is one way they make their profit. As you%26#39;re from Australia I guess you be travelling with more then 15kgs of baggage. I%26#39;d give the budget priced airline companies a miss as in the end they%26#39;ll be expensive because of the money you%26#39;ll have to pay for your luggage. I%26#39;d stick to the train which has no limit for luggage weight. One to one and a half days would be the limit to see and visit Carcassonne. Have a good trip.
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Thank you both for your replies, I am pretty sure we will use the train system...we are reluctant to use the cheap flight carriers unless necessary for many of the reasons you have listed. The train idea through Switzerland sounds very interesting, I will try and do some research on it. When I was trying to grasp the many fast train services that exist throughout Europe, I did notice one coming out of Switzerland and into France and then another running down through France, north to south....will go back and have a longer look at that.
Funnily enough I contacted the tourist bureau at Carcassonne asking a couple of similar questions and they just stated they couldn%26#39;t help with transport questions....so not sure if that is political or a policy thing....I would have thought they would have known every conceivable way to reach their town.
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Carcassonne can be cold and windy, or sunny and mild, from day to day, either way it%26#39;s beautiful. The %26#39;06 winter had only two days of snow, a few of rain of course, and the occasional windy days, but also days of sun and warmth enough to eat in the square.
Train to Carcassonne usually via connections Toulouse or Narbonne is easy, and plenty of good restaurants remain open during winter. La Cite is magical when the tourists are gone, and Jardin de la Tour or Restaurant Pacer St. Jean is always open.
Consider a gite or b%26amp;b, like Le Grand Puits, right in la Cite.
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