French Customs

I've ate enough pati, fois gras and green olives followed by glasses of barky oak red to last an eternity this week. It's after midnight and I'm struggling to climb to the top floor of the Romanesque Château Comtal and the Gothic Basilica of Saint-Nazaire, the Hôtel de la Cité. I'm in the city of Carcassonne in Southern France tonight and this place is so magical and so fairytale-like that I feel like Cinderella - Cinderella who will inevietable turn into a pumpkin if I keep eating cheese and baquettes during every 3-hour meal here. This aristocratic hotel offers luxury beyound compare all within the walls of an old medieval fortified city. Every room offers views of narrow cobble-stone streets or the city far down the opposing hill. My room on the top floor has a little balcony jutting off the side with views of lush gardens with al fresco dining tables. The manager offered us a personal tour where Grace Kelly, Johney Depp and hundreds more famous actors stayed. The tour weaved in and out of long corridors and tight hallways almost like an erudite labyrinth wanting its customers to get lost just to see its hidden treasures. This place breaths history. Tomorrow, I scale the imposing and impregnable stone walls circling the city which welcome some 2 million visitors a year. But tonight I'm so captivated with the panaromic view of towers and turrets it's going to take a long while before I'm asleep.