Thanks to one of those sort of flights which has boy wonder 'reporters' at the Independent wrinkling their noses with disgust, I was able to spend the last week in the somewhat surreal surroundings of the mediaeval fortress of Carcassonne in Languedoc-Roussillon, stuffing myself with cassoulet and trying to find somewhere which sells Orangina for less than they charge for the equivalent volume of beer.

Advertising itself as Le Pays Cathare, a thousand years ago the region was a centre of the dotty, but harmless Cathar or Albigensian sect, before perhaps a million people - Cathar and non-Cathar alike - were exterminated in a genocide preached by the Catholic church (which has never lacked the stomach, merely the technology) desperate to preserve its wealth and power, and prosecuted by northern French nobility greedy for their share of the spoils. Or if you prefer the €4.50 Carcassonne the City version, the reject[ion of] the temporal and moral authority of the clergy was duly punished.

Today, the walls of Carcassonne speak of different struggles.

There's a great high resolution panoramic photo of the city here. Back to reality shortly.