2 Walk On!: Narbonne, France

We had a lovely 2 1/2 hour train ride from Barcelona to Narbonne, across the border into France. Narbonne is a an old Roman town built on either side of the Canal de la Robine. We had planned on 2 nights here to get the things we needed to start hiking and hike from Narbonne plage back to town as "the first stage of the route. We realized very quickly that was not realistic and so booked another night at this hotel. We headed for the Tourist Info with the idea that they would have the maps and info we would need to hike the first 4 days out of town. Once we get to Carcassonne the guide book we have covers the rest of the way.

The canal with barges tied up along side.

This turned out to be wishful thinking. They had no information and didn’t know anything about the route. They sent us off to 2 different book stores. The first store had nothing while the 2nd one had one trail guide but it also started at Carcassonne like our book did. We talked the rest of the day as we sat outside at a table in a plaza having a glass of wine and then later at supper about what we should do.

The Bishop’s Palace

One thought was to hike out this canal north to where it joins up with the Canal du Midi then hike from there to Carcassonne - about 5 days hike. We decided that we would both prefer to hike with information and trail markers. Back to Tourist Info and a good chat with gal in there and we will now take train to Carcassonne on Sunday (30 min.) and stay at abbey in dorm for pilgrims. We stayed there 9 years ago The plan now is to start hiking from there.

In the mean time the inner old town of Narbonne is so interesting. All the little neat streets to wander up and down.