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Easter in Southwest France?

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Bonjour everyone, hope your year is off to a marvelous start!

My girlfriend and I will be traveling to France for a wedding at a chateau in Marthon in April. We will be leaving that chateaux on the 19th - the Saturday of Easter weekend. Not sure why they planned for that busy weekend but here we are. :-) We will have a week afterwards to explore without a car - so catching the train from Angouleme. The one place we are looking forward to is Carcassonne so we are planning to head further south at some point. Neither of us drink wine so are thinking of skipping Bordeaux.

With so many places likely closed for the Easter weekend we're not sure where the best place might be to spend those 2-3 nights. Bordeaux? Toulouse? Head straight to Carcassonne? Back to Paris and forget the SW? haha

Thanks!

Posted by
2503 posts

Easter Monday being a public holiday, I suppose that to allow the guests to come for a 3-day weekend it was easier to organize the wedding that weekend.

Since you will not have a car, the best base to visit Carcassonne or even Albi is Toulouse, 3h30 by train from Angouleme.
Carcassonne and Albi are 1 hour by train from Toulouse.

In my opinion staying in Carcassonne for one night is not essential, it is only like an open-air medieval museum. By leaving in the morning you can easily visit the medieval city in one day, have lunch there, then return to Toulouse in the late afternoon. The inhabited city of Carcassonne itself is not of great interest.

The same goes for Albi with its famous cathedral and a few museums and others places. But you could eventually stay 1 night, have a guided tour on the first day, stay for dinner, stay for the night, and continue touring the city the next morning.

The city of Toulouse, the pink city, is also worth a visit. Most of the places to visit and activities are in the historic center and are easily doable on foot. You will need at least 2 full days to see the essentials.

Toulouse:

https://www.toulouse-tourisme.com/en/

Albi:

https://www.albi-tourisme.fr/en/

Carcassonne:

https://www.tourisme-carcassonne.fr/en/

Paris is 4h30 by train from Toulouse and Toulouse has an international airport with many daily flights to Paris.

https://www.toulouse.aeroport.fr/en

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