The most beautiful Cathar castles

Perched on dizzying rocky pinnacles in Languedoc, the so-called "Cathar" castles were above all the setting for the last episodes of the thirteenth-century crusade against the Albigensians, before being reworked into royal strongholds facing Aragon.

This selection brings together the "five sons of Carcassonne" (Peyrepertuse, Quéribus, Aguilar, Termes and Puilaurens), sentinels of the old Franco-Aragonese border, as well as Montségur, the last Cathar bastion to fall in 1244, and other emblematic fortresses of the Aude.

Dizzying ruins reached by mountain paths, best kept for fine weather and good walking shoes: the climb is often as much a part of the experience as the visit itself.