Chateaux Lastours

Yesterday may have been the first day of summer, but today did a lot to convince us that summer has indeed arrived. It was sunny and warm, but a touch of the Mistral was left so it was a perfect activity day.
Thusly, we headed to one of the last Cathar strongholds that we had not yet visited, Lastours, which is almost directly north of Carcassonne by about 30 kilometres. Unlike other Cathar castles we have visited, this site actually consists of 4 castles - Cabaret, Tour Régine, Surdespine et Quertinheux.

Apparently no one was visiting Lastours today, because we encountered very few visitors, which was nice. We have some pretty vivid memories of climbs up to other Cathar fortresses and this one actually ranked as relatively tame.

You can see that the first of the castles wasn't too too far above town. Anyway, the exercise was good for us, so we didn't whine about the climb.

From the first castle on the site, Quertinheux, the views of the other 3 were quite impressive. One little historic note about this site is that while the remainder of the Cathar nation was being obliterated from 1209 to 1210, this place actually resisted and finally capitulated in 1227.

The route up to the castles took us through a petit grotto.

Following our trek up and down Lastours, we drove a couple of kilometres to the Belvedere overlooking the four castles, which is part of the ticket to get onto the site. This is really the most impressive view of all and as usual it's better than any views within the site itself.

As is true of most Cathar sites, with the exception of Beziers and Carcasonne, Lastours was very remote, so the drive there and back pretty much ate up the day. Because we were a tad tardy getting going this morning, there was no place left open for lunch on our return. Therefore, Aurelie had to suffice and our well stocked fridge bailed us out.