Carcassonne (La Cité)

The hilltop was fortified before the Romans, who built walls here around the late empire, and the Visigoths later held the city. In the Middle Ages the Trencavel family ruled as viscounts and built the Château Comtal and the cathedral. During the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars, crusaders besieged Carcassonne in August 1209 and Simon de Montfort became viscount. The city submitted to the French crown in 1247 and, after the Treaty of Corbeil in 1258, became a frontier fortress facing the Crown of Aragon, gaining the outer walls that give it its distinctive double ring.

When the Treaty of the Pyrenees moved the border south in 1659, the fortress lost its military role and fell into neglect. An 1849 decree to demolish it provoked protests led by the local historian Jean-Pierre Cros-Mayrevieille and the writer Prosper Mérimée, and from 1853 until his death in 1879 the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc led its restoration. His slate-roofed conical towers have long been debated as more northern French than local in style. UNESCO inscribed the Historic Fortified City in 1997.

Carcassonne is a market town of the Aude department, surrounded by vineyards producing Corbières, Minervois and Malepère wines. Cassoulet, a slow-baked dish of white beans with duck confit and sausage, is the local speciality and is served all over La Cité and the lower town. Summer brings a festival of concerts and theatre, and the lower town's square hosts markets several times a week.