Perched on rocky pinnacles, the so-called Cathar castles overlook the Corbières and the Pyrenees. This itinerary offers four days between the Aude, Ariège and the Pyrénées-Orientales, with the best-rated fortresses in the catalogue.
People speak of "Cathar castles", but these fortresses were not all built by the Cathars, nor even inhabited by them. Catharism is a medieval religious movement that developed in Languedoc in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Several fortresses served as refuges for lords or followers, before being taken during the crusade launched against the movement.
After the conquest, many of these fortresses were integrated into the defensive system of the French crown, especially facing Aragon. It is this military past that explains their perched position and massive architecture.
The fortresses of the Corbières and the Pyrenees stand out for their settings: rocky pinnacles, ridges, cliffs. Several offer wide panoramas over vineyards, garrigue scrub and mountains. Their jagged outline can be recognised from very far away.
The city of Carcassonne, with its double ramparts, is a case apart: it is a large fortified complex, restored in the nineteenth century, which attracts many visitors.
The Corbières is a land of vines, garrigue and stone villages. The wines are renowned, and wine estates often offer tastings. In the south, the Ariège and Catalan Pyrenees offer valleys, gorges and natural sites.
Local cooking gives pride of place to cassoulet, mountain produce and the wines of Languedoc and Roussillon. Remember to book, as some restaurants are small.
Four days let you visit several fortresses and discover the landscapes. Group them by area: the Corbières, the Fenouillèdes, the Ariège Pyrenees. Allow several hours per site, as the climb and the visit take time.
The itinerary below groups the best-rated sites in the catalogue by proximity. Alternate fortresses with breaks in villages, and keep some slack for narrow roads.
The map shows the numbered stops in visiting order, with one colour per day. The line follows the roads where available; otherwise it joins the stops as the crow flies. Distances and times are approximate (by car, without traffic).
This day brings together 4 sites close to each other: natural wonders, castles and villages. It passes through Le Somail. Allow half an hour to an hour and a half per site, plus travel time.
Driving for the day: about 110.2 km, or 2 h 13 behind the wheel in total (excluding visits).
It is from the modern bridge spanning the Aude that you should discover the city of Carcassonne. And if possible when the setting sun tints with golden-glinting pinkish grey its geometry, both elegant and complex.
View full page →↓ 1.3 km · about 4 min by car to the next stop
A fortified medieval town, with the history of the crusade against the Albigensians, the still-inhabited Cité de Carcassonne lies on the right bank of the Aude.
View full page →↓ 43.4 km · about 54 min by car to the next stop
The Pic de Nore is the highest point of the Montagne Noire (1,210 m), a southern balcony of the Cévennes.
View full page →↓ 65.5 km · about 1 h 16 by car to the next stop
Shaded by its century-old plane trees, the hamlet of Le Somail is one of the most picturesque stops on the Canal du Midi, a seventeenth-century engineering masterpiece listed by UNESCO.
View full page →This day brings together 5 sites close to each other: caves and castles. Allow half an hour to an hour and a half per site, plus travel time.
Driving for the day: about 125.4 km, or 2 h 34 behind the wheel in total (excluding visits).
The Mas d'Azil cave: carved in the heart of the Plantaurel range, it offers an underground complex unique in Europe.
View full page →↓ 49.2 km · about 53 min by car to the next stop
The Bédeilhac cave is in the basin of Tarascon-sur-Ariège, a few kilometres from Niaux and Fontanet.
View full page →↓ 9.2 km · about 19 min by car to the next stop
The largest cave in the European Community developed for the public, a vast underground world with rich isolated concretions among long galleries of fairy-tale appearance: the mammoth, the tomb of Pyrene, the throne of Bébrix, the hall of a thousand columns...
View full page →↓ 39.5 km · about 45 min by car to the next stop
Before setting off to assault the "Pog", the path passes close to the stele erected in 1960 "to the martyrs of pure Christian love".
View full page →↓ 27.5 km · about 37 min by car to the next stop
At six hundred metres' altitude, on top of the hill overlooking the village to the east, firmly set on its "pech" in the middle of a vast cirque crowned with firs, the feudal castle of Puivert (Puyvert – Puy-Verd) outlines its proud keep and dismantled walls.
View full page →This day brings together 3 sites close to each other: natural wonders, caves and castles. Allow half an hour to an hour and a half per site, plus travel time.
Driving for the day: about 77.1 km, or 1 h 25 behind the wheel in total (excluding visits).
The Têt rises in the Carlit massif, near Lac des Bouillouses, and runs about a hundred kilometres from west to east to its mouth in the Mediterranean, north of Canet-en-Roussillon.
View full page →↓ 27.3 km · about 34 min by car to the next stop
The Fontrabiouse cave, in the Pyrénées-Orientales, is equipped for guided visits all year round on a route of about an hour.
View full page →↓ 49.8 km · about 50 min by car to the next stop
On the departmental boundary of the Aude and the Pyrénées-Orientales, Puilaurens long remained the southernmost fortress of the kingdom of France.
View full page →This day brings together 4 sites close to each other: natural wonders, castles and villages. It passes through Vernet-les-Bains and Collioure. Allow half an hour to an hour and a half per site, plus travel time.
Driving for the day: about 160.0 km, or 3 h 03 behind the wheel in total (excluding visits).
At 2,785 metres, the emblematic summit of the Catalans, the easternmost high point of the Pyrenees, visible from the Mediterranean in clear weather.
View full page →↓ 34.4 km · about 40 min by car to the next stop
"Les Orgues" are strange rock formations eroded by time and shaped like chimneys.
View full page →↓ 46.1 km · about 59 min by car to the next stop
"It is to be known that in the Marches, on this side of the Aragon frontier, is the City of Carcassonne, which is the mother and has five sons, namely Puilaurens, Aguilar, Quéribus, Termes and Peyrepertuse".
View full page →↓ 79.6 km · about 1 h 24 by car to the next stop
A little Catalan port of colourful houses nestled in a cove of the Vermilion Coast, immortalised by Matisse and the Fauvist painters in the early twentieth century.
View full page →Spring and autumn are ideal: mild temperatures and beautiful light. Summer is very hot and many fortresses are exposed to the sun. In winter, some sites are closed or hard to reach, and the wind can be strong.
A car is essential: the castles are scattered and often at the end of narrow roads. Expect some walking to reach them: several are accessible by steep paths.
Set in the Salat valley, St Lizier appears, dominated by the imposing silhouette of the fourteenth-century Bishops' Palace, facing the snow-capped peaks of the Pyrenees.
A lock on the Cabardès since the early Middle Ages, the Lastours site is an exceptional ensemble with its four castles built at 300 metres' altitude, on top of a rocky spur.
The village houses a heritage of incredible historical richness: around the bend of medieval lanes you discover façades of mansions from the eleventh to the eighteenth century.
The Niaux cave, universally known, rivals Lascaux for the high quality and excellent conservation of its cave paintings; for nearly 13,000 years the cave has consisted of several moderately concreted galleries with splendid colours.
Évol is two kilometres north-west of the town of Olette. It is a typical village that has kept its heritage and architecture.
A superb citadel whose foundations plunge into the sea, the château de Collioure was built on the remains of Roman constructions, later transformed in Visigothic times and first cited in 673.