Experience the best of Carcassonne
Carcassonne is a medieval walled citadel above the River Aude in southern France, a UNESCO site of 52 towers and pointed slate roofs.
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La Cité, the fortified old town, rises above the River Aude behind a double ring of walls, roughly three kilometres long, with 52 towers, its foundations dating from Roman and Visigothic times and its defences rebuilt in the Middle Ages. Much of it was restored in the nineteenth century by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, who added the pointed slate roofs. Inside, the Château Comtal and the Basilica of Saint-Nazaire, with its stained glass, stand among cobbled lanes.
Below the citadel, across the medieval bridge, the Bastide Saint-Louis is a gridded lower town laid out in the thirteenth century, with a market square, and the Canal du Midi, a UNESCO-listed waterway built in the seventeenth century, runs through with its tree-lined towpaths. The Cathar castles of Lastours, Peyrepertuse and Quéribus, hilltop ruins from the time of the Albigensian Crusade, stand in the hills around, with the Pyrenees closing the horizon.
Cassoulet, a slow-baked casserole of white beans, sausage and duck confit, is the dish of the region, served with the red wines of Corbières and Minervois and the sparkling Blanquette de Limoux. Summers are hot and dry, and the stone walls glow at dusk. Spring and autumn are gentler, and on 14 July fireworks light up the ramparts.
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