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CARCASSONNE
Department: Aude (11)
Region: Languedoc-Roussillon

Explore one of the largest fortified towns in Europe, and one of the best conserved thanks to restoration work carried out by Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th century.

Almost at the centre of the Aude département lies the two-tiered city of Carcassonne. The lower town – La Ville Basse – is built around the bastide of St Louis, built in 1260 to the customary chequerboard pattern of these fortified settlements.

There are over 300 bastides in the south of France, and as well as meeting defensive strategies, they served to garrison and control the changing and feckless populations of the Middle Ages. Today, St Louis is consumed by the sprawl of modern Carcassonne, a bright, bustling place and one of the most-visited cities in the whole of Languedoc-Roussillon.

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Above the bastide, across the River Aude is the Upper Town, La Cité, the largest fortress in Europe, consisting of a central building, the Chateau Comtal, surrounded by a double curtain wall within which hundreds of people once lived. These days, there is a resident population of a little more than a hundred , with access by the narrow but massive Porte Narbonnaise, a crenellated redoubt built on a bridge across the moat. Wandering the streets of La Cité at night, after the clamour of tourists has subsided and the walls are floodlit, is one of the great pleasures of Carcassonne.

Enter by the Porte Narbonnaise and you are suddenly pitched into the Rue Cros Mayrevielle which, it has to be said, is a mess of tacky souvenir shops. But this narrow street - used by vehicles, although only those resident or staying at the hotels can drive in the city - leads up to the place du Chateau. Through an archway and over a dry moat, and you enter the world of the Chateau Comtal.

Chateau Comtal

Discover the ramparts and the château of the Counts of Carcassonne, lying in the heart of the city. They are Gallo-Roman and medieval masterpieces of military architecture on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Admission charge.

Open: Apr-Sep 0930-1830; closed 1 Jan, 1 May, 14 Jul 1 and 11 Nov, 25 Dec. Tel: 04 68 11 70 70; http://carcassonne.monuments-nationaux.fr.

Read more about the buildings of Carcassonne...

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The lower town

The regular layout of the lower town means that it is difficult to get lost: just keep turning left and you’ll probably find your friends wondering where you got to, still ensconced outside the café on the Place Carnot, one of the city’s most favoured meeting places, where markets are held beneath the gaze of a statue of Neptune, and the problems of the world are put to rights, at least for the next hour or so.

Walk up Rue Georges Clemenceau, and eventually you come to Pont Marengo spanning the Canal du Midi, just in front of the railway station. The canal is a remarkable engineering achievement and, like La Cité, a World Heritage Site. This 360km network of navigable waterways linking the Mediterranean and the Atlantic is one of the most remarkable feats of civil engineering, one that elevates engineering to a work of art, thanks to the care that its creator, Pierre-Paul Riquet, took in its design and the way it blends with its surroundings.

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Wandering the floodlit streets of La Cité at night is a joy

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SOMEWHERE TO STAY

Hotel le Donjon, Cité Médiévale, 2 rue du Comte Roger, 11000 Carcassonne. Tel: 04 68 11 23 00; www.hotel-donjon.fr.

Hotel Mercure Porte de la Cité, 18 rue Camille Saint Saens, 11000 Carcassonne. Tel: 04 68 11 92 82; www.mercure.com.

SOMEWHERE TO EAT

Maison du Cassoulet, 6 rue du Grand Puits, 11000 Carcassone La Cité. Tel: 04 68 47 6 03; www.maisonducassoulet.com. Especially recommended for its cassoulet; take you time, and enjoy it!

In addition there are a number of restaurants and cafés in the Old City, and many in the Lower Town.

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Arrive late, stay late...avoid the tourists...and stay for dinner

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