France Guide
The Pyrenees
The Cathar castles
Romantic and ruined, the medieval fortresses which pepper the hills between Quillan and Perpignan have become known as the Cathar castles, though many were built either before or after the Cathar era. Roussillon, Languedoc and the eastern Ariège was this twelfth-century sect's power-base; their name derives from the Greek word for "pure", katharon, as they abhorred the materialism and worldly power of the established Church, were initially pacifist and denied the validity of feudal vows or allegiances. While the Cathars probably never accounted for more than ten percent of the population, they included many members of the nobility and mercantile classes, which alarmed the powers that were.
Once disputational persuasion by the ecclesiastical hierarchy proved fruitless, Pope Innocent III anathemized the Cathars as heretics in 1208 and persuaded the French king to mount the first of many "Albigensian" crusades, so called after Albi, a Cathar stronghold. Predatory northern nobles, led for a decade by the notoriously cruel Simon de Montfort, descended on the area with their forces, besieging and sacking towns, massacring Cathar and Catholic civilians alike, laying waste or seizing the lands of local counts. The effect of this brutality was to unite both the Cathars and their Catholic neighbours in southern solidarity against the barbarous north. Though military defeat became inevitable with the capitulation of Toulouse in 1229 and the fall of Montségur in 1244, it took the informers and torturers of the Holy Inquisition another 180 years to root out Catharism completely.
The best of the castles stud the arid, herb-scented hills of the Corbières which separate Roussillon from Languedoc. Walking is the most direct way to experience them; the GR36, crossing from Carcassonne to St-Paul-de-Fenouillet, and the Sentier Cathare, traversing east to west from Port-la-Nouvelle to Foix, together pass most of the sites. The Sentier Cathare is described in Le Sentier Cathare Topo-guide (Rando Éditions).
Without transport or walking boots, the best way to tackle the castles is from the south, as the most spectacular ones are close to the Quillan– Perpignan road. This route is served by bus, but a better option is the narrow-gauge Train du Pays Cathare et du Fenouillèdes ( 
04.68.59.96.18, 
www.tpcf.fr ), which runs from Rivesaltes or Espira de Agly, just north of Perpignan, to Axat, stopping at the main towns along the way. The service (sometimes only St-Paul-de-Fenouillet to Axat) runs Sun– Wed in May, June, September and October, daily in July & August (adult fare €11–18 depending on direction and distance).