ARIEGE & AUDE - ENTREPRISE & HOLIDAY ACCOMMODATION

The Ariege and Aude departments are both situated in the southwest region of France and named after the two rivers The Ariege and The Aude. Both departments are steeped in Cathar history. Many local towns and places have been mentioned in books such as The Labyrinth and The Albigensian Crusade.

The area is ideal for walking, rambling, photography, bird watching, cycling or looking at the wildlife and enjoying the beauty of the surrounding area in the clean, and unpolluted fresh air. It is an wonderful location for a holiday as there are so many things to do and the climate can be very pleasant during the summer.

The nearest local international airports for the Ariege or Aude are Toulouse, Carcassonne, Montpellier or Perpignan.

THE ARIEGE

The Ariege department is a largely unknown department which is situated next to the Aude in the most southern part of the Midi-Pyrenees department and shares its borders with the Aude, Andorra, Haute Garonne and the Pyrenees Orientales. This is predominantly a farming area as the soil is rich and fertile, but more than 50% of the Ariège is mountainous and 40% of this 490 965 hectares is covered by forests.

Part of the Ariege is situated in the Pyrenees, next to Andorra. Unbelievably, the highest peaks are visible from Toulouse in the Haute Garonne. It is one of the least populated and most unspoiled regions of France. The locals enjoy keeping old traditions alive.

Foix is the administrative capital of the Ariege but other major towns are Pamiers & Mirepoix. Foix is an ancient town with a fine fortress perched on a hill above the town, called Chateau de Foix. Simon de Montfort attacked the fortress many times without succeeding to capture it. In times gone by, the Chateau was used as a prison. Another famous chateau, is Montsegur, which is perched at a height of 1200 metres (3900 ft). The present ruin of the chateau at Montségur is not actually the work of the Cathars. During the siege in 1244, the fortress was mostly rebuilt in the second half of the 13th century. The chateau has painful past as more than 200 Cathar priests were burnt at the stake as heretics for their alternative Christian faith

The local town of Pamiers is famous for its 3 bell towers and also is the birthplace of Gabriel Fauré, the classical French musician and composer. It also boasts awards for the equivalent of "towns in bloom" - 'Ville Fleurie'.

Local facilities include good restaurants, bars, supermarkets, large public indoor and outdoor swimming pools, (one of 50m).

Pamiers lies in an ancient alluvial plain of the Ariege River in the area called La Basse Ariege. Here there is a rich fertile soil ideal for agriculture which is evident all around. Pamiers has 16,000 inhabitants and is the most important town in the department as it is the economical capital of the Ariege.

Originally the town of Mirepoix used to be part of the County of Foix. In 1207 the Count granted it a Charter. Catharism was becoming more widespread and there were thought to be about 50 "Perfects" houses in Mirepoix.

In 1209, Simon de Montfort captured Mirepoix and then entrusted it to his Lieutenant Levis. Pierre-Roger de Mirepoix, tried to retake his town in 1221 but unfortunately died during the siege.

In 1279 a dam broke up at Puivert and the original town thought to be built in the 1100's right next to the River Hers, was destroyed and carried off in the floodwater. Jean de Levis rebuilt Mirepoix in a slightly different location in a more regular style of the original bastide towns. The timber framed houses were built over hanging the pavements - "couverts" which were there to protect the people from the weather.

The spa town of Ax Les Thermes is 20 kilometres southeast of Tarascon on the Ariege River. The town is completely walled in by mountains and its location is an ideal base for exploring the surrounding peaks and as a stopping point on the way to Andorra or the N20 going to Font-Romeu and then on to Perpignan and the Mediterranean.

The town is quite pleasant and has a few medieval buildings and above Place du Breilh, the church of St Vincent is of architectural interest for its Romanesque tower. Just across the road you can dangle your feet for free in the Bassin des Ladres, a pool of hot sulphurous water which is the only remenant of the hospital founded in 1260 by St Louis for soldiers wounded in the Crusades

Like all the area, the town of Saint-Girons saw a Roman occupation. St-Girons is situated in the Courserans area of the Ariege and has a long association with cigarette-paper manufacture. The most striking thing about St-Girons is its central pavements, made of a local reddish-pink marble with finely chiselled gutters to take the rainwater from down-pipes. And although there are no other memorable sights, it's a very pleasant town, with a folklore festival in mid-July and a theatre festival in early August.

At the Pont-Vieux, there are picturesque rapids on the River Salat. The bridge leads you towards the old commercial centre of the town on the right bank, with some marvellously old-fashioned shops, their fronts and fittings unchanged for generations. To the right, past the tiny Cathedral, is the Place des Poilus, which hosts the faded elegance of the Grand Hôtel de France and the equally old-fashioned Hôtel de l'Union, where you can still stay. The latter's ground-floor café is a splendid balconied period piece facing the riverside Champ de Mars, a wide gravelled allée of plane trees, which provides the site for a big general market on the second and fourth Monday of every month, and for a regular produce market every Saturday morning.

St-Lizier sits on a hilltop, and is full of history; is walled, arcaded, cobbled, cathedraled, half-timbered, pretty, and lifeless outside of summer.

Architecturally the most interesting building in town is the Cathédrale de St-Lizier with its distinctive octagonal tower sitting picturesquely against the mountains to the south. Inside are some twelfth-century frescoes faded almost to invisibility, and a fine Romanesque cloister, also 12th century, with some unique sculpted column capitals. A second cathedral, Nôtre-Dame-de-Sède, within the grounds of the bishop's palace, is closed indefinitely for renovation, though the palace is also home to the Musée Départmentale de l'Ariège on the first floor which contains a permanent ethnographic collection devoted to the Vallée du Bethmale. It is, however, worth walking up to the palace anyway, for views over St-Lizier, and continuing on round the old ramparts.

There are other of other towns and villages in the Ariege which all have a lot of history attached to them and are well worth a visit.

The Aude starts at the Mediterranean in the east and finishes at Castelnaudary in its most western region and is situated on the Canal du Midi which is another UNESCO world heritage site. The Canal du Midi or Canal des Deux Mers was created in the past to link the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. The alternative long sea voyage around Spain would take a month and there were serious chances of being attacked by Barbary Pirates enroute. The Canal starts in Toulouse on the River Garonne and ends at the Etang de Thau at Sete on the Mediterranean. It is 240km long, took 12,000 workers 15 years to build and was finished in 1681.

The large town of Castelnaudary which is also situated on the Canal du Midi is the capital of the Lauragais. It is situated 50km south east of Toulouse and the Mediterrean and was a Roman settlement area. It gained its prosperity during the 17th century when it was a large exporter of agricultural and manufactured products. There is a 7 hectare "bassin" which is the largest area of open water on the Canal du Midi and is a popular tourist area for sailing and boating.

On 15th May 1681 work began on the Canal du Midi here and the town is famous for the 4th Foreign Legion Regiment which started in 1976. Castelnaudray is also the self proclaimed capital for the recipe of Cassoulet.

The mountain range of Montagne Noire is in the northern part of the department and the Pyrénées is at the most southern part of the department.

Fanjeaux is located in the Aude, 360 metres above sea level hanging on a rocky promontory. It is in the Lauragais area between the Pyrenees Orientales and the foothills of the Massif Central.

It has an ancient Oppidum Roman temple and a town which had 3000 inhabitents which was destroyed many times. Fanjeaux, celebrated by the troubadour Peire Vidal, was very much related to the events which shook Languedoc in XIIIème century and was one of the bastions of the catharism in Lauragais. Fanjeaux was in the centre of preaching against the Cathare heresy.

The Aude produces an enormous amount of wine and over a third of its land is devoted to vine growing. The wine industry provides a large portion of the department’s economy. The Aude is home to eight AOC areas: La Clape, Quatourze, Corbières, Fitou, Minervois, Limoux, Côtes de Malepère and Cabardès. (The Appellation d’Origine Controlées - AOC is the highest classification for French wines, and the governing bodies are very strict criteria with regards to not only the taste and quality of the wine, but also the quality of the grape variety, its cultivation and production).

Quillan is situated in the Aude department and located at the foothills of the Pyrenees on the road between Carcassonne and Perpignan. It is in the high valley of the Aude, close to the mountains, is a medium sized town 6km from from the popular watersports town of Esperaza and is popular for white water rafting, canoeing and kayaking on the Aude River (Alet-les-Bains) is another good place to go for white water sports).

The river Aude and the Canal du Midi traditionally carried timber and other local products to Carcassonne. The town was particularly noted for hat making. Mr Jean Bourrel, a local businessman who developed a millinery factory in the town, was responsible for the construction of houses, and creation of fashionable hats.

The immediate area is rich in geographical and historical interest. There is a railway line from Carcassonne which stops in in Quillan and also in Limoux and Espéraza on the way. The service is limited and many of the trains are actually buses.

Narbonne known as Narbona in Catalan and Occitan and the Roman Narbo is the largest commune in the Aude department in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. It is 849 km from Paris and is it the Sous Prefecture of the Aude. Narbonne was once a prosperous port and it is now located about 15 km from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, but fell into slow decline in the 14th century, for a variety of reasons. The decline was mainly due to a change in the course of the Aude River which caused increasing silting of the navigational access. The Aude river had a long history of overflowing its banks, fluctuation in flow, direction and sediment and as the Mediterranean sea level slowly rose the 'sea port' aspect of Narbonne was no more

During the 16th century, the people of Narbonne were keen to maintain a link to important trade, and so began costly works to the Aude River's access to the sea, so that it would remain navigable to a limited draft of vessel and also a link with the Royal Canal. The works were finished with the construction of the Canal de la Robine, which finally linked to the Canal du Midi (then the Royal Canal) in 1787.

Limoux is a market town and a sub-prefecture in the Aude, a part of the ancient Languedoc province and now the Languedoc-Roussillon region. It lies on the River Aude and is about 30 km due south of Carcassonne.

The town is perhaps best known for its Winter festival called Fècos, often referred to (inaccurately) as a Carnival or fête. Fècos is the name of a dance characteristic of the festival). It is generally referred to as Carnaval de Limoux in French language. This takes place between January and Easter and is conducted in Occitan,, the traditional language of the area, hence Laugue-d'Oc ("tongue" of the Occitans). The cafe scene is dominant in Limoux where food and drink represent the dominant cultural pastime.

The population of the Aude is about 310,000 and is approximately 5% of the population of France..

The Aude has its own ski resort of Camurac.