Page 472 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - France

Basilique St-Nazaire
The beautiful stained- contains the Siege
glass Gothic interior of Stone, said to depict the
1209 siege by crusaders.
Basilique St-Nazaire,
Carcassonne’s cathedral
Bishop’s Tower
1
CARCASSONNE

 D7 ⌂ Aude k 4 km (2 miles) W Carcassonne £ Port du
Canal du Midi @ 30 rue Georges Brassens n 28 rue de
Verdun; tourisme-carcassonne.fr
The huge and impressive citadel of Carcassonne is a
perfectly restored medieval town, and is protected by
UNESCO. It crowns a steep bank above the River Aude, a
fairy-tale sight of turrets and ramparts overlooking the
Basse Ville (“lower town”) below. The ramparts
were built in the
The strategic position of Carcassone between the Atlantic and 13th century.
the Mediterranean, and on the corridor between the Iberian
peninsula and the rest of Europe, led to its original settlement,
consolidated by the Romans in the 2nd century BC. The city
became a key element in medieval military conflicts. At its
zenith in the 12th century, it was ruled by the Trencavels, Did You Know?
an important noble family in the Languedoc, who built the
spectacular château and cathedral. Military advances and Kate Mosse’s best-
the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, which relocated the selling thriller
French–Spanish border, hastened its decline and the citadel Labyrinth is set in
fell into decay. In the mid-19th century, the attentions of archi- Carcassonne.
tectural historian Viollet-le-Duc (p202) led to the restoration
of Carcassonne, work which continued into the 1960s.
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