Carcassonne

Carcassonne is a fortified city in the Aude department of southern France, its hilltop position between Atlantic and Mediterranean trade routes occupied since the Neolithic period and held by Rome, which established the colonia of Julia Carsaco there, until the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The medieval citadel, the Cite de Carcassonne, is defended by two concentric walls carrying 52 towers and barbicans built to prevent attack by siege engines, with construction spanning the Gallo-Roman period through the Middle Ages. Threatened with demolition in 1849, the citadel was instead restored between 1853 and 1879 under the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, whose choice of slate roofing over the region's traditional terracotta tiles remains a point of controversy in assessments of the restoration. UNESCO added the Cite de Carcassonne to the World Heritage list in 1997, citing the exceptional preservation and restoration of the medieval citadel, which now draws about three million visitors a year.