Tourism

Our site covers the Corbières wine region, to the south and east of the medieval city of Carcassonne. Wooded valleys and rugged limestone hills descend to the sandy coast near the Roman city of Narbonne. It is part of Languedoc, the "crossroads of Europe", with a long history of the meeting (and sometimes clashing) of cultures. Its story is embodied in the architecture and the countryside — the cloistered calm of Romanesque abbeys and churches, and the very different sort of peace to be found in ruined Cathar castles perched on rocky crags.

In the two main holiday months of July and August coastal areas will be bustling and lively, but in the rural hinterland you can wander for hours and rarely see another human being. This is "la France profonde" where life is lived in tune with the seasons.

The climate of this region is naturally similar to that of neighbouring Provence: very low rainfall, and reliable sunshine during the late spring and summer, with daytime temperatures up to 35 degrees C (90F), interrupted by dramatic thunderstorms from late August onwards. "C’est le pays du vent", the locals will tell you, meaning "It’s the land of wind", but Languedoc does not suffer the mistral which batters Provence, blowing so hard and so insistently it is said to drive people mad. Instead, it boasts not one but two winds: the cers from the Pyrenees, harbinger of clear skies, and the marin from the Mediterranean which brings humidity and rain. In winter, the temperature rarely approaches freezing point, although the cers sometimes makes it feel like it. Snow is a rare enough event for even a sprinkling to excite comment and provoke accidents as drivers unused to dealing with it slither into roadside ditches.