18/7/13

So we are back at the Old City (Castle) & someone offered to take a photo for me when they saw I was doing a selfie, so I let them. We are at the Northern Entrance, the largest & the flashiest.

It's got a moat here & a drawbridge, but no water again.

This place really is awesome...you can't really imagine how big it is until you are there, but it covers 12 hectares...& stone walls, stairs, roads...everything built in stone.

This gives you a little bit of an idea about the size of this place...outer wall on the left & inner wall on the right & the rampart has a road running around it...huge!

 Some of the different types of architecture you can find inside.

This is inside the Gothic Church & although restored, most of this is original from all the different periods right back to the 1200's...so much detail.

Another more modern building on the inside...a beautiful hotel that would be wonderful to stay in...better book early though.

I think it's a bit early in the morning for this cat...

I don't know why, but this enormous & beautiful sculptured shell was in the entry to the Church?

This woman was making the most beautiful music using this traditional steel kettle thing...& I bought the CD.

The tour we are on walked us from the Old City down to the New City which is across the river, via this bridge.

On the right is a church & on the wall of the yellow building is markers of the years that they have had huge floods through the towns.

Originally the New City had a stone fortress surrounding it too, but most of it has been destroyed as the city has outgrown the confines of the walls...this is one of the remaining old baileys.

We finished the tour at the section of the river where there is a lock system that allows vessels to navigate the waterways so far inland from the Mediterranean Sea. It's very efficient & the drop is over 1 metre to get into the next section of river.

You can see how much lower this boat is when the water has been drained out or compare it to the boats in the background.

The tours over & the boys are off to do their thing, so I headed back to the Castle to sit & enjoy my last moments in this special place & do a bit of crowd watching while I blogged. Tomorrow we head to Barcelona in Spain.