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Eat 'n Sleep Carcassonne :: Hotel de la Cite and La Rapiere

Our Eat 'n Sleep feature profiles a restaurant in a random city and a hotel nearby. It's kinda like that old show "Dinner and a Movie" but you know, with restaurants and hotels. And better jokes.

When one finds herself inside a city surrounded by cement walls, she tends to have only a small selection of eating and sleeping options. Of the three hotels in southern France's Carcassonne, the largest fortified city in Europe, we like Hotel de la Cite best. Because about three million tourists come to see this thriving town-in-a-box, the cost of a night's stay rivals larger cities' rates. Prices start at about €275 ($381) a night in low season for the basic rooms. Expect to pay about €1,025 a night for high-season suite.

Since the building is, oh, about a thousand years old, layouts and sizes of the 40 guestrooms and 21 suites vary, but all the guests usually lounge on the outdoor patios overlooking the city. Italy's Vanity Fair tells us Johnny Depp stayed there last year. Now there's one expat who knows his France.

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