Wanderlustre

A thousand flaming torches send our shadows racing across the ancient city walls. Drums throb with the intensity of a second heartbeat, reverberating against my ribcage. Men in chainmail and tunics march alongside us, our feet stamping in time with the beat, and young boys in livery proudly carry the streaming banner of their city.

We aren’t time travellers, just ordinary wanderers with the good fortune to stumble across a medieval festival during a brief stopover in Carcassonne.

Our boots carry us over the cobblestones, past the striped tents of knights. Swords gleam dully in the torchlight and armour clanks as their owners emerge from the tents to join our march. We tried on that armour earlier in the day, pulling oversized helms down over our eyes and staggering under the weight of painted wooden shields.

The air grows thick with the earthy smells of smoke and sweat as we approach the forge. The sharp ringing of metal on metal forms a bizarre duet with the pounding drums as the blacksmith beats red-hot horseshoes. Perspiration races along his jaw like rain down a window, and his bare chest glistens. His hammer rises and falls rhythmically, in time with our stomping feet.

Our path takes us across the tourney ground where, hours earlier, a melee had been in full swing. Grown men in mail and boiled leather were defied and defeated by a horde of children with plastic swords and half-helms, dying dramatically to the hearty cheers of onlookers.

A chant swells from the front of the column and engulfs the crowd, a jumble of words that we do not understand but try to replicate with feverish enthusiasm. We are clumsy copycats drawing stares with our atrocious pronunciation but we persist, soaring high on the euphoria of our unexpected adventure.

When you leave home to see the world, dire warnings are heaped upon you by all and sundry. But no one prepares you for the dreadlocked man with the beer trolley who warns you to take care and points you to better-lit roads, or the hostel owners who come out to find you in the middle of the night because you are lost in unfamiliar streets. It isn’t always the view from the Eiffel Tower or the vastness of the Colosseum that are the unforgettable moments. It is spontaneous events, shared laughter and the kindness of strangers that crystallise into the memories that you never forget.