French fun and games
Andrew Penman enjoys rich history and the fine cuisine of Southern France’s Carcassonne
Border shift left the city defences frozen in time
By some strange coincidence, many of my favourite spots in France begin with the letter C.
There’s the cherry capital Ceret, on the coast of the Med there’s Collioure, up in Normandy there’s Coutances and across in Brittany there’s Carnac, which has the best beaches – when it’s not raining.
Now I can add to that glorious list Carcassonne which, even by the standards of historic French towns, takes some beating – and it’s the inspiration for a hugely successful modern board game.
I’ve long believed in the importance of taking games on holiday, given how often a downpour leaves me trapped in a tent or caravan, irrespective of location or season. For this trip, the first choice had to be the eponymous Carcassonne, which has sold seven million copies worldwide since it was published in 2000.
Players place tiles in turn featuring fields, roads, rivers and city walls, while trying to secure the most valuable territory.
And so, at the end of a day’s sightseeing and wine-tasting, I challenged my companions to a game as we sat at an outdoor bar drinking local iced Crème de Citron as the sun went down over those ancient walls.
To a large extent, the survival of the old town is down to an accident of history – the Treaty of the Pyrenees, which was signed in 1659 and shifted the French border with Spain south to the mountains. Carcassonne went from a frontier town to a backwater of little military significance. Where other towns and castles had to update their defences to cope with the growing importance of gunpowder, Carcassonne was left frozen in a time of tall ramparts and rounded turrets.
The region is dotted with other fortifications from the same period, and though none are so grand in scale, the four castles within a stone’s throw of each other atop the peaks at Lastours are well worth the half-hour drive.
If the climb there and back makes you peckish, there’s the Michelin-starred restaurant Le Puits Du Tresor snuggling by the river at the bottom. Don’t worry if
the prices are a bit like the hike to the castles – steep – the same award-winning kitchen serves the sister restaurant next door at more modest rates.
The castles date back to the time of the Cathars, a Christian sect that Pope Innocent III took a dislike to at the start of the 13th century.
This was partly down to their refusal to pay taxes to the Catholic church, and partly because of some unorthodox beliefs – like being peace-loving vegetarians.
So naturally they had to be exterminated. The Pope ordered a crusade and knights from northern France poured south, putting Cathars and Catholics alike to the sword or burning them at the stake.
Which explains my second choice of game for the trip – the card game Burn The Heretic. Obviously.
I like to think that Cathars and Catholics could agree on one thing: they were blessed to live in one of the world’s great wine-growing regions.
The story that the monk Dom Perignon nicked the idea for Champagne after tasting the local Limoux sparkling wine is entertaining although almost certainly false, but there’s no doubting the quality of the area’s fizz.
One English fan of the local wine is former financier Graham Nutter, who liked it so much that he emigrated and has transformed the St Jacques d’Albas vineyard in Minervois, which mainly produces reds.
“There was no white when I came here, and I wanted some for personal consumption,” he said.
So now he produces 10,000 bottles
Truffle ice cream is a local speciality
of white a year as well, though not all, I assume, for personal consumption.
In Carcassonne itself there’s no shortage of places to refuel. Rue Trivalle just outside the old town offers a string of restaurants, among them one specialising in truffles, including truffle ice cream.
In the lower town, close to the market, there’s Remi Touja, an award-winning dessert maker whose impeccably smart shop is a treat.
Nearby is the restaurant Robert Rodriguez, a most unprepossessing exterior hiding authentic cuisine rooted in locally sourced produce in a décor evoking the 1920s and 30s.
Just outside town there’s another Michelin-starred restaurant, Domaine d’Auriac, with a terrace as idyllic as the menu – this is a place that does souffle on a scale I didn’t think possible.
Inside the medieval town, the restaurants in the Place St Jean give the best views of the inner citadel, while Le Jardin de la Tour allows you to eat right under the ramparts.
Which brings me to the one fly in the ointment. For some reason, the French have a habit of sticking hideous modern art in the most inappropriate settings – and the sooner they get rid of the red and black wooden plank abstract abomination from the old citadel, the better.
That aside, this was a visit with more fond memories of fine wine, food and breathtaking vistas than you could shake a stick at.
It also left me with a new ambition in life, playing games in their eponymous settings.
I think I might have problems with one of last year’s top releases, Terraforming Mars, so next on my list is Castles of Burgundy, designed by board game genius Stefan Feld.