We left Lyon at about 9:00 this morning ready for the 4 hour drive to Carcassonne. It was a smooth drive with wider roads and not too many gear changes. We stopped on the way at a picnic/rest stop and had 2 minute noodles prepared using our flask of hot water. We reached Carcassonne at about 2:00 and checked into our hotel. As we only had one afternoon in Carcassonne we soon got back in the car to drive the 6 kms into the centre. We had planned to use public transport so we could avoid driving into cities but there was only 1 bus per day that went past the hotel so that plan quickly went out the window. The biggest tourist attraction of Carcassonne is the huge castle and medieval city – apparently the most popular French attraction and one of the best castles in Europe. Of course Kate was already hungry again though so once we got to the castle we had a crepe each (our first French crepes). Kate had a caramel one and Calvin had a butter one. Calvin ordered a beurre one (beurre = butter) but initially a beer came out (biere = beer)! We then wandered through the castle and along the walls. Calvin absolutely loved it. After having wandered through a fair few castles in Europe before, Kate found it a bit boring. Kate prefers seeing the castles in the landscapes rather than being in the castles and seeing the landscape from them. We then drove to the newer part of town (although it still seemed pretty old). We strolled along the river over the Pont Vieux and into the park before roaming through the streets with shops and cafes. It was incredibly quiet though – a very different story to what it must be like in summer. We got a few more supermarket supplies and then decided to look into dinner options. It was about 5:30 by this stage but most restaurants don't open until 7:00. To help with our hunger pains, we stopped at a café for a hot chocolate and orange juice. Initially we thought we should get some French food but, to be honest, we are getting a bit sick of French food (lots of bread and cheese) so we couldn’t resist going to a Chinese restaurant - La Jonque - that we happened to walk past that had great TripAdvisor reviews. We were very impressed. The food was delicious and we were also particularly impressed that the waitress from Macau could speak 5 languages (Mandarin, Cantonese, French, Portuguese and English)!