The network of fortresses of the seneschalty of Ca

I'm happy to contribute the first review of this area!

I visited 7 of the 8 sites across four days October of 2017. The only one I missed was Termes. I came primarily to see the castle ruins, such as the ones nominated here, but there are so many other beautiful natural and historical man-made places to visit that I was thinking this was my new favorite part of France. If you like castle ruins, this is the place for you! They are best visited with your own car, although be prepared for narrow, winding, mountain-side roads with no guard rails between you and a steep drop off. Visiting in the shoulder season was great because it meant very little traffic, and I had a few of the castles to myself.

Most of these castles are famous partially through their association with the Cathar, or Albigensian Crusades of the early 1200s. (Neither name is particularly appropriate. They were erroneously thought to be centered around the city of Albi and Cathar is a relatively modern name for them.) A lot of the ruins you visit today are of castles built on the spot of the Cathar-era strongholds that were torn down. The castles then served as border posts against Spain, but that function was rendered moot by the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrennes which fixed the border further south I had never heard of any of this history before visiting the area, and it was very interesting to learn. …