Carcassonne

Carcassonne, France

The fortified walls of Cité de Carcassonne viewed from Pont Neuf at sunset.

A walled medieval citadel above the Aude plain, best seen from the ramparts and the Pont Neuf at dusk.

The place

Carcassonne is a commune in the Aude department of southern France, and it serves as the department's prefecture. It has around 46,000 residents and sits on the plain of the Aude, about 80 kilometres east of Toulouse. The town has long stood between trade routes that link the Atlantic with the Mediterranean and the Massif Central with the Pyrenees, which is one reason it has been fought over for so long. Most visitors come for the Cité, a walled citadel on a hill above the modern town, whose towers and ramparts are largely the product of a nineteenth-century restoration. That gives the place a tidy, storybook look that some visitors find too polished and others find irresistible. The lower town, the ville basse, is a grid of later streets with shops, bars and restaurants, and it is where most people sleep. Summer is hot, and the Cité fills with day-trippers by late morning, so the walls are easiest to walk early or in the evening. Tourism is the main draw, but manufacturing and winemaking are also important, and the countryside of vineyards and small villages gives the area a working side beyond the postcards.

Its story

Carcassonne's hill was settled long before its walls were built. Traces of people in the area go back to the Neolithic, and by the sixth century BC a site with a Celtic name, Carsac, had become a trading place. The Volcae Tectosages turned it into a fortified hill settlement. The Romans later saw the value of the same height and fortified the summit in the centuries before the Common Era. The hilltop eventually became a Roman colony, and its name shifted over time through Carcaso to Carcasum. Parts of the northern ramparts still contain Gallo-Roman masonry.

When the Western Empire faded, the Visigoths took the region in the fifth century and made Carcassonne part of their kingdom. Their king Theodoric II is thought to have started an early church on the site of what later became the basilica dedicated to Saint Nazarius. In the early sixth century, the Visigoths also held off an attack by the Frankish king Clovis I.

Then there is the legend. A lady of the castle, usually named Carcas, is said to have ended a siege through a clever ruse, and the townsfolk marked the victory by ringing bells. A neo-Gothic statue of her stands near the Narbonne Gate, but the tale itself is a later retelling of a sixteenth-century account, so treat it as local colour rather than record.

The fortress seen today owes much to the nineteenth century. Eugène Viollet-le-Duc led a long restoration, and his work drew on a fifteenth-century painting that showed the walls as they were imagined at the time. The result is more complete and more romantic than what survived, and historians still argue about how far it departs from the original. UNESCO listed the Cité in 1997 for the quality of its preservation and restoration.

What to see

Culture

Carcassonne is a working town as well as a heritage site, and the Cité's stones are still lived around by people going about ordinary business. Local life runs on French habits: shops and some restaurants close for a long lunch, and evenings in the lower town are sociable and unhurried. The town's wine and food traditions are part of everyday conversation, so ordering a regional wine or asking about a dish is a good way into local life. Religious buildings are used for worship, and the basilica and cathedral keep services at set times that visitors should respect. Festivals and cultural events in the town draw audiences who are used to a quieter, more personal style of gathering than the big-city crowds. When you enter the basilica or cathedral, cover your shoulders and knees, and turn off mobile phone sounds before you step inside.

What to wear

{"paragraph": "Carcassonne has no costume of its own. Folk dress does appear in the south of France, but mostly at regional festivals, where it comes out for processions and displays. Those are seasonal and occasional, so you will not see it in daily life. Check local event listings if you hope to catch one. Day to day, people dress in a relaxed, everyday French style: jeans, linen shirts, simple dresses and comfortable sneakers, with a little more polish for dinner. Visitors need flat shoes with good grip for the cobbles and the uneven stone paths of the Cité. Summer sun on the open walls makes a hat, light cotton and a water bottle sensible. Cover shoulders and knees for the basilica and cathedral, and carry a light layer for cool evenings and for air-conditioned churches."}

What to eat

Plan it

Best time. April, and the later part of September and October, bring warm rather than scorching days, walkable walls and fewer visitors than July and August. Summer is hot and busy, and winter days are short and quiet, though the Cité stays open.

How long. 2–3

Getting there. Toulouse Airport is the larger alternative, and the train journey from Toulouse city takes about an hour to an hour and a quarter to reach Carcassonne. High-speed TGV trains also call from Lyon, Barcelona and Toulouse. From the railway station it is about twenty minutes' walk to the Cité, and some shuttle buses from the airport stop at the Cité; check the airport website for timetables.

Budget. mid

Tips

Etiquette

Nearby

Sources