As you might know, Carcassonne has one of France’s largest fireworks displays on the 14th of July to celebrate Bastille Day. The city organizes this enormous display where they blast off thousands of fireworks from the medieval castle ramparts and you can see it from miles around. Thousands of people line up along the banks of the River Aude and the Canal du Midi to watch from up close. My parents usually have a little shindig up at the vineyard where we have a nice, private view of the fireworks.

This year, I was in the castle while they were setting up the display and I snapped a few pictures. Truckloads of PVC pipes are wheeled into the castle days before the celebration so that all the fireworks are ready to be shot off.

The castle is one of those uniquely French tourist attractions where there are no real rules or a “sense de la visite”.  It’s just an epic castle town and you wander around it.  It doesn’t really have open hours or anything and you can show up whenever you like and do whatever you want.  So it’s strange to see this period before Bastille Day where there is a lot of security making sure people don’t mess with the fireworks as they are being set up.