Cité de Carcassonne (The Medieval Fortress)

The Cité de Carcassonne is the best-preserved walled town in Europe, and the first view of it from the lower town or from the old bridge is memorable: a double ring of walls, dozens of towers with pointed slate roofs and a hilltop crown of stone. The two lines of ramparts run for roughly three kilometres in total, with more than fifty towers, and the space between the inner and outer walls, known as the lices, was once a killing ground for attackers. The Cité was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1997.

The site is far older than the walls. Gallo-Roman defences stood here, and the Visigoths reinforced them in late antiquity. The medieval layers came later: the Trencavel family ruled the place in the twelfth century, and in 1209 the crusade against the Cathars brought a siege that ended with the surrender of the town. After it was absorbed by the French crown, King Louis IX and his successors added the outer wall and the great towers. When the Treaty of the Pyrenees of 1659 moved the border south, the fortress lost its military role and slowly decayed.

The form you see today owes a great deal to the nineteenth-century restoration led by the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, begun in the 1850s. He rebuilt towers, replaced roofs and added the tall conical caps in a northern style, a choice scholars still argue about, since a Mediterranean fortress might never have had such pointed slate. For visitors this raises an interesting question: how much is authentic, how much is reconstruction?

Inside the walls, the Château Comtal, the old residence of the counts, is the core of the fortress, and you can walk the walkways along the ramparts for views across the town and the plain toward the Pyrenees. The Basilica of Saint-Nazaire, with its Romanesque nave and Gothic choir, has some of the finest medieval stained glass in the region. The narrow lanes can be crowded with shops, especially in summer, so go early or stay until evening when the day-trippers have left.

Below the hill, the lower town has a very different feel, with the Place Carnot, Les Halles de Carcassonne and the Canal du Midi. The Pont-Vieux, the old bridge across the Aude, gives a classic view back up to the walls.

It suits families, history lovers and photographers. Wear comfortable shoes for the cobbles and check the current ticket and opening details before you go.