Hôtel de la Cité - Carcasssone

Superb service and beautiful interior. Swimming pool with view on the church wall or on a part of the ramparts. Nicely green and very well looked after. Not heated. Terrace lovely with a lot of seating choices in different settings. Top of the terrace offers a magnificent view over "modern" Carcassonne and the hills. Enjoying this view with a nice glass of good wine is a must! Parking is outside the walls and the free of charge shuttle service to the hotel works well. And thanks for all the good advice and info about the history of the ramparts Jerome, we much appreciated it.

OK the good: great quiet location in a UNESCO world heritage site where you can hide from the overcrowded tourist flow during the day.The city, as a museum, is amazing but don't go in the summer season as you simply can not walk through the village from 10-6 as it is so crowded. Hangout in the hotels spacious garden or by the quiet pool or, as we did on our terrace facing the fabled walls and watch sweating tourists make the wall circuit.The less than what was expected: Based on what is suppose to be a Michelin 1 star restaurant, we pre booked a special menu offered on the website but one that the restaurant staff was unaware of and very confused and it made us quite uncomfortable and apprehensive for our anniversary dinner. The food was good but certainly NOT up to the level of other Michelin star restaurants we have eaten at recently.We should have been mentally prepared for this. When we arrived we found the HOT bottle of cold Champagne, $20 Euro for $80, we had ordered when booking so that when we arrived in the heat of the afternoon and wanted to celebrate our Anniversary prior to a special dinner out on our private terrace. We had to order ice and a bucked through room service which arrived promptly but melted quickly and more ice needed to be ordered.Don't get us wrong the service was friendly, caring, and fairly efficient, although the room could have been vacuumed better, but it certainly lacked coordination and failed to anticipate the guests needs as a 5 star and very expensive hotel.In general both the kitchen and property seem to be living off of past laurels and the premier placement and architectural style in the Cite. Maybe it was due to summer vacation on management's part?

Surprised that we could not get a coffee mid morning until the barman arrived at midday - not 5 star service! Staff friendly and spotlessly clean.