Carcassonne

Two rings of walls set with more than fifty towers wrap the hill twice. The open ground between them, the lices, can be walked all the way round with no ticket. Viollet-le-Duc's pointed slate roofs, a northern style, still fuel argument over accuracy.

The count's castle, moated again inside La Cite, and the one part needing a ticket. Admission includes a stretch of the rampart walk, tower to tower above the lower town. In high season, arriving soon after the morning opening shortens the ticket queue.

The church inside La Cite, with a Gothic choir grafted onto a Romanesque nave. The stained glass round the choir counts as some of the region's oldest. Step in on a sunny afternoon and the coloured light spreads across the floor.

The lower town, planned from scratch across the river in the 13th century, hence its neat street grid. Place Carnot at its centre holds a market on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings. Most residents live here, and meals cost less than inside the walls.

A 14th-century stone bridge joining the lower town to La Cite on foot. Cars no longer use it, so you can stand mid-span with the whole wall straight ahead. After dark the walls are floodlit, and the bridge gets its biggest crowd.

North of Carcassonne, four castles linked to the Cathar story stand in a row along one ridge. A lookout across the valley frames all four together, and a stony path climbs to the castles. At midday in summer there is no shade, so bring plenty of water.

A castle from the Cathar era stretched along a rock crest in the Corbieres, ninety-odd minutes from Carcassonne by car. The stone stair to the upper keep is steep, and on windy days the whole site is closed to visitors.

In a Corbieres valley an abbey and a stone village sit on opposite banks, and the village is listed among the most beautiful in France. Its square keeps a medieval market hall under a timber roof. In summer people swim from the riverside rocks.

A vast underground chamber in the Montagne Noire, viewed from a steel balcony that juts from the cave wall over the deep floor. The air inside is chilly in every season, so take a layer even in midsummer.

A Canal du Midi landing sits right outside the railway station, where cruise boats leave to pass through the locks. While the boat waits in the lock for the water to fill, you watch it rise one step at a time. Boats run only from spring to autumn.

Northwest of town, this hill village became a book village once used-book dealers and binders arrived from around 1990. Each lane has a bookshop, and a small museum shows old bookmaking. Stock is mostly French, but picture books and old maps need no words.

A Cistercian abbey hidden in a valley near Narbonne, founded in the late 11th century, with its medieval cloister and church intact. Mornings are loveliest, when sun slants between the cloister columns. In late spring the rose garden is in full bloom.

A castle perched on a rock at the crest of the Corbieres, where the last Cathar stronghold fell in 1255. Clear days reveal the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean at once. Wind on top is ferocious enough to steal a hat.

A hilltop village where, late in the 1800s, the poor priest Sauniere adorned his church and built a tower with money nobody could explain, which bred treasure legends. A devil holds up the stoup by the church door. His Magdala Tower overlooks the valley.

A village on a rock spur between two river gorges; the Albigensian Crusade besieged and took it in 1210, burning its Cathars. Below it, the river has bored natural bridges through the rock. In summer you can walk the dry riverbed underneath them.

A road cut into the wall of a sheer limestone gorge, barely one car wide. Midway, a trail leads down to the Saint-Antoine hermitage, wedged into a fissure of the cliff. Passing oncoming cars is tricky, so drive slowly.

A man-made lake in the woods east of the Cite, with sandy beaches and swimming zones that draw locals in summer instead of the sea. A walking path loops around it. After touring the ramparts, it is the place to cool off on a hot afternoon.