Carcassonne is one of the most perfectly preserved medieval walled cities in the world, and the largest in Europe. The Cité sits above the River Aude with 52 towers and two concentric walls adding up to three kilometres of ramparts — a fortress that looks almost exactly as it did seven centuries ago.
The city has two distinct centres. On the right bank of the Aude rises the Cité itself: a medieval fortress enclosing the Basilica of Saints Nazarius and Celsus and the Château Comtal, where the counts of Carcassonne once held court. Narrow alleyways and ancient wells wind between the towers, all wrapped within the double ring of walls. The left bank holds the Bastide Saint-Louis, a more conventional French town with grid-iron streets, a handsome main square, and merchants' houses from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that recall the days when Languedoc's cloth trade made fortunes.
The Cité is still lived in today. The castle, towers, and ramparts belong to the State, while the rest falls under municipal authority. Most of the Cité is freely accessible to visitors, and walking the lists — the open ground between the inner and outer walls — gives you a real sense of the scale and ingenuity of medieval military architecture.
Beyond the walls, Carcassonne sits at the heart of Languedoc, surrounded by vineyards and within easy reach of the Pyrenees. The Aude river offers kayaking, and the Canal du Midi passes just north of town.