Carcassonne is an ancient city built in several times. Today, it has 5 major sites, including its fortified medieval city with its oppidum dating from Antiquity. Built historically on the upper city along the river Aude, it communicates by the Old Bridge with the lower city, called La Bastide Saint-Louis, created in the 13th century to meet the needs of merchants. The history of the city is linked to the geological relief which made this rocky spur a territory issue since the 6th century between the Gauls and the Romans. The latter equipped the city with ramparts in the 3rd and 4th centuries. On the western side of this fortification, the castle built in the 12th century by the illustrious Viscounts Trencavel, called the Comtal castle, is supported. At the beginning of the 13th century, Carcassonne was taken by Simon de Montfort, during the Albigensian crusade, and then annexed to the royal domain. The fortification work continued throughout the 13th century, with the construction of the outer wall and the modernization of the inner rampart. Carcassonne lost its importance after the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, which attached Roussillon to France and took away its border power. In the second half of the 19th century, the restoration of the medieval city was taken in hand by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc through a huge restoration project. It acquired its letters of nobility in 1997 with its inscription on the Unesco World Heritage List.

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Pictures and images Carcassonne

Château de Carcassonne. shutterstock.com -leoks
Cité médiévale. Yan EVEN
Le château Auzias. Château Auzias
Les ingrédients du cassoulet Claude CALCAGNO - Fotolia

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