My friends and I went hiking last weekend and, after a steep ascent, we finally arrived at a glistening alpine lake in a breathtaking glacial valley, where a herd of beautiful black horses grazed near the water. We sat on the cool stone of some rocks in the shade where we could look at the horses and the peaks of the Pyrennes and pulled snacks from our bags to share - a few sandwiches, some biscuits, two oranges, a bag of pretzels, a packet of Belvitas. "Hiking is just going somewhere more beautiful to eat your lunch," one of my friends commented with a smile, taking a sandwich half.
It's just this, this juxtaposition with the mundane and the extraordinary, that I found myself thinking about yesterday during a visit to the medieval city of Carcassonne. Carcassonne is only an hour by train from Toulouse, so a group of my classmates and I went to check it out. Getting off the train, we were greeted by lovely morning sunlight and pastel-colored buildings and cobblestone streets. We wandered around in search of lunch, looking in a crepe shop in a restaurant that looked more like someone's home and a tea shop with expensive brunch but adorable floral decor, and we finally ended up at a cheap sandwich shop. We sat on the terrace and ate perfectly ordinary sandwiches, but I really do think even the simplest meal when you're traveling feels so extravagant. With my friends around me and the sun making the whole city cheery and visitors and locals alike passing by quietly on city streets, I felt that I could have been in a movie. I get that a lot here - I'll be doing something completely normal and then remember that I'm in France, and all of a sudden whatever I'm doing becomes extraordinary.
We crossed the bridge to the medieval part of the city and I said it felt like being in Disneyland, Disney and Prague being the sum total of my previous experience with castles thus far. Here was a drawbridge - a real drawbridge! - and as we crossed, I remembered the first book series I really fell in love with. It was called Lily Quench, and while I remember little else about it other than there being a dragon and my reading the word "sarcophagus" for the first time, I do remember that there was a castle and a dungeon and a scene where someone almost drowned in the moat. Being here, I found myself fulfilling a childhood fantasy without really meaning to, and gratefully, I felt that younger me would be proud.
We passed through the gate into a cacophony of sound and a sea of people. Amid centuries-old stone walls, shops still caused chaos with modern wares. Postcard stands and those ubiquitous scarfs from tourist shops were stationed outside on narrow streets. Children's costumes of knight's armor hung in shop windows. An ice cream shop sold violet-flavored ice cream, and restaurants seemed to advertise two main entree options - hamburgers and a regional stew of duck, sausage, and beans called cassoulet.
One incredible part of being a student at a European university is free entrance to almost all museums, and we took advantage of that at Carcassone (but even if you aren't a student, it's still not terribly expensive to visit - I think the sign said it was 6 or 7 euros.) I thought again of my younger self, dressing up as Cinderella, and smiled as we explored the castle.
We climbed worn wooden stairs and passed through a room with a beautifully carved water fountain and large windows looking out onto the French countryside. It was funny to me, all of us in our white tennis shoes and summer skirts, snapping pictures on our phones. I imagined some princess centuries ago passing this fountain, skirts trailing behind her, her smile lifting as she looked out at the same undulating hills, the same gleaming fields.
I found my fingers touching the stone as we walked along the ramparts. A sign mentioned frigid winter wind from the mountains; I imagined medieval guards keeping watch, shivering in the cold night air.
After we'd finished visiting the castle, we stumbled upon a place called Le Bar a Vins, which had lovely outdoor seating right by the castle walls. We ordered cocktails and marveled at the way the afternoon light seemed to dance around the terrace, how my Aperol Spritz sent little orange stained-glass reflections bouncing on the table. It was one of those moments that seems suspended in time and absurd for being that way. Here we were, a group of college students from four different continents, yet we were somehow in this medieval city in the South of France, sipping Italian cocktails outside the castle walls and dreaming up fantastic voyages to anywhere and everywhere, trips we might actually, somehow, get to take.
We headed back to the train station, passing a Gothic basilica complete with terrifying gargoyles and ornate rose windows and an expensive-looking ivy-covered hotel. The city seemed quiet, a peaceful, late-afternoon kind of quiet. As we walked down cobblestone roads, I remarked at how wonderful it is to get to visit a place so clearly historic in our own time. We wondered at how difficult travel must have been, centuries ago, when the transit options were walking or going by horse. And not even just this - I am happy to have seen Carcassonne when I could pay with my card at the bar, when the streets were clean and smelled of ice cream cones baking, when there was still some sense of the familiar in the tourist shops. I felt like I had a glimpse into the past, enough to wonder but not really know - in short, enough to imagine.
It's like the idea of eating sandwiches in the mountains, this act of bringing something of our own into a place unfamiliar and exciting. Here we brought tote bags and cameras and our own twenty-first-century selves. We allowed our own ordinary to be touched and transformed by the extraordinary, even if just for an afternoon. To think of fairy tales and princess stories and knights, to feel that peculiar, welcome sense of being somewhere entirely different, entirely new. I think this is part of the beauty of traveling - to find that the magic we are seeking is often not so out of the ordinary after all.