Free Walking Tour Carcassonne: Bastide to Cité

Your Carcassonne Walking Tour Stop by Stop: Lower Town, Bridge and Cité

1. 1

   Place Carnot

   

   Start in the town without walls, on purpose. Place Carnot is the open central square of the Bastide Saint-Louis, the lower town where Carcassonne actually lives. The covered market halls and the local bars are a few streets away, and the walled Cité you came for waits on its hill across the river. You will reach it on foot, and the walk shows you how the two towns belong together.

   This grid of streets exists because of an exile. After the crusade against the Albigensians, the people of Carcassonne came back after seven years away, and the king had the old settlement around the ramparts torn down, the Aude diverted and the marshes drained. Louis IX then allowed the inhabitants to build a new town down here, on the far side of the river from the fortress that had once been their home.

   The square is also the city's stage, and the calendar decides what you find on it. In July the free shows of the Festival OFF take over the Bastide's squares in the evenings. In October a wine festival fills this one with the appellations of the Aude. From early December it turns into a Christmas village with an ice rink.

   From here it is 800 m and 11 minutes to the river. On the way you pass the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Carcassonne, then the houses open up and the Pont Vieux lies ahead with the Cité behind it.

   Hours

   Open 24/7

   Price

   Free

   Location

   Place Carnot on Google Maps ↗

2. 2

   Pont Vieux

   

   Stop in the middle of the Pont Vieux and look both ways. Ahead, the Cité sits on its hill; behind you lies the lower town you just crossed. Downstream you can make out the next crossings, because Carcassonne lines up three bridges over the Aude in a row: the Pont Vieux, the Pont Neuf and the Pont de l'Avenir.

   The story of a bridge here starts with a deal. The oldest document dates from 1184: Roger Trencavel allowed the townspeople to build a new bridge, provided they paid for it themselves. In his will of 1194 he kept only the principle of his toll and cut it to a yearly payment of two measures of wheat. That bridge was probably wooden and took about ten years to build, though the historian Jacques-Alphonse Mahul argued that the deed referred to another crossing, the Pont du Moulin du Roi on an old arm of the river. Either way, the Albigensian Crusade most likely destroyed it.

   The stone bridge under your feet belongs to the new lower town. Early in the 14th century the king allowed the inhabitants to build it in stone and fund the work with tolls on passage and paving. It was under construction in 1315 and probably finished around 1320; a deed of 1353 shows it complete. A royal letter of 1318 granted Limoux the same arrangement, which is why the Pont Neuf there looks related. Originally a stone arch split this bridge in two and marked the border between lower town and upper town.

   The bridge did not come through unchanged. Two arches collapsed in 1456, and the restoration of 1820 reworked it and somewhat disfigured it. It has been a listed historic monument since 1926. Now comes the longest leg of the walk: 930 m and 16 minutes uphill to the Porte Narbonnaise.

   Hours

   Open 24/7

   Price

   Free

   Location

   Pont Vieux on Google Maps ↗

3. 3

   Porte Narbonnaise

   

   At the Porte Narbonnaise you are at the main entrance of the walled Cité, a UNESCO-listed fortress. Look up and around before you walk in: fifty-two towers punctuate a double ring of walls that wraps the whole hilltop. What you see today owes much to the 19th century, when Viollet-le-Duc restored the fortress and gave the towers their pointed slate roofs.

   The double ring is the key to understanding the place. Between the outer and inner walls runs a strip about a kilometre long called the lices. You can follow it around the full defensive circuit, away from the shops and crowds of the main street, and see how an attacker who broke through the first wall would find himself trapped in front of the second. If you have twenty minutes to spare, walk a stretch of the lices before going further in.

   From the gate, the route crosses the Cité de Carcassonne itself: 230 m and 3 minutes through the lanes to the Château Comtal, the castle inside the fortress.

   Hours

   Always open

   Price

   Free

   Location

   Porte Narbonnaise on Google Maps ↗

4. 4

   Château Comtal

   

   The Château Comtal is the only stop on this route with a ticket counter, and the one most visitors misunderstand. The adult ticket buys the castle interior and the wall-walk, the rampart circuit of the Cité. It does not buy the Cité: the lanes and gates you just walked through stay free either way. Decide on that basis, not on the poster at the gate.

   On a first visit, with one interior in the day's budget, this is the one to spend it on. The wall-walk shows you the fortification from above: the two rings of walls, the lices running between them and the Aude you crossed at the Pont Vieux. From up there the morning's walk suddenly makes sense as one picture, lower town, bridge and hill.

   Timing matters more than anything else here. The ticket office stops selling a while before the castle itself closes, so arriving late in the afternoon can cost you the visit.

   Back outside, the basilica is 210 m and 3 minutes away.

   Hours

   2 May – 30 Sep 2026 daily 10:00–18:30 | 1 Oct – 31 Dec 2026 daily 9:30–17:00. Ticket office closes 45 min (Apr–Sep) resp. 30 min (Oct–March) before closing.

   Price

   EUR 13 adult

   Website

   carcassonne.monuments-nationaux.fr ↗

   Location

   Château Comtal on Google Maps ↗

5. 5

   Basilica Saints Nazarius

   

   The Basilica Saints Nazarius is built of sandstone on the plan of a Latin cross, 59 m long inside, with a 16 m wide nave and a 36 m transept. Walk around to the north wall for the main entrance: a Romanesque portal of five receding arches over two doors. The west wall is a fortress façade, as was common for medieval churches in the Languedoc.

   Inside, the building splits into two moods. The Romanesque nave, the oldest part, is dim. Then the Gothic transept and choir open up with much larger windows and far more light. Look for the central stained-glass window of the choir: it dates from 1280 and is one of the oldest in the south of France. The crypt looks ancient too, but it belongs to the later construction.

   The history goes back further than the stones. A first church is thought to have stood here in the 6th century, under the Visigothic ruler Theodoric the Great. On 12 June 1096 Pope Urban II came to the town and blessed the building materials for a new cathedral, completed in the first half of the 12th century on the site of a Carolingian cathedral of which nothing remains. Around the end of the 13th century, under Philip III and Philip IV and the bishops Pierre de Rochefort and Pierre Rodier, it was rebuilt in the Gothic style.

   It stayed the cathedral of Carcassonne until 1803, when the title passed to the Cathédrale Saint-Michel. It became a historic monument in 1840, was renovated by Viollet-le-Duc along with the rest of the Cité and was raised to a minor basilica in 1898. Entry is free, so go in whatever your interests; twenty minutes is enough for the nave, the choir window and the portal. The last stop is just 160 m and 2 minutes on.

   Local name

   Basilique Saint-Nazaire-et-Saint-Celse de Carcassonne

   Hours

   Mon–Sat: 09:00–18:30 | Sun: 9:00–10:45, 12:30–18:30

   Price

   Free

   Website

   tourisme-carcassonne.fr ↗

   Location

   Basilica Saints Nazarius on Google Maps ↗

6. 6

   Porte d'Aude

   

   The Porte d'Aude is the western gateway of the Cité, and it ends the route with a wide view: vineyards stretching toward the Pyrenees, a landscape that has hardly changed since the fortress guarded the border between France and Aragon.

   The gate was also a lifeline. The steep cobbled path that runs down from here passes the Church of Saint-Gimer and was the way medieval defenders went down to the Aude for water during sieges. Standing here, you can see why a fortress on a hill needed this exit as much as its walls.

   If you head back to the lower town, this path is the defenders' route in reverse of the morning: from the Cité down toward the river you crossed at the start.

   Hours

   Open 24/7

   Price

   Free

   Website

   remparts-carcassonne.fr ↗

   Location

   Porte d'Aude on Google Maps ↗

Shorter Ways Through Carcassonne

The full route links both towns. If time, budget or energy is short, these cuts still make sense on their own.

The Cité only

Stops: 3, 4, 5, 6

For when you are already up at the walls or have only a morning. From the Porte Narbonnaise to the Porte d'Aude it is 600 m and 8 minutes of walking; the only ticket is the castle. With the interior and wall-walk, allow about two hours.

Outside the walls of the castle, free all the way

Stops: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

For a tight budget: walk the whole route but look at the Château Comtal from its gate instead of buying a ticket, and use the time for the lices instead. Walking stays at 36 minutes, the cost at zero, and about an hour and three quarters is enough.

Lower town and old bridge

Stops: 1, 2

For an evening after a day in the Cité: Place Carnot and the Pont Vieux, 800 m and 11 minutes apart, both free, with the walled town lit up across the river. Half an hour covers it.

How Long This Carcassonne Tour Takes, With and Without the Castle

Most of the 36 minutes of pure walking comes at the start: 11 minutes to the bridge, then 16 minutes uphill to the Cité. Once inside the walls, the last four stops sit three minutes or less apart, so the morning slows down exactly where there is most to see.

A realistic example: leave Place Carnot at 9:00, pause about ten minutes each at the square, the bridge and the gate, and you reach the Château Comtal at 10:00. Give the castle about 75 minutes, step into the basilica at 11:18 for twenty minutes and you stand at the Porte d'Aude around 11:40. On a Sunday the basilica takes a break late in the morning, so start later and reach it once it has reopened.

The Cité-only variant takes about two hours with the castle, the free full route about an hour and three quarters, the evening loop in the lower town half an hour.

Before You Set Off from Place Carnot

• Start and finish: Place Carnot is the recommended start, but you can join at any stop. The route ends at the Porte d'Aude, the western gate of the Cité, so you finish high up with the view rather than back in the lower town.
• Best time: Any day works: the squares, bridge and gates are always open and the castle opens daily. The basilica is open every day too, but on Sundays it closes for a break late in the morning.
• Costs: Budget for a ticket if you want the castle interior and wall-walk. The rest of the route, the basilica included, costs nothing.

Common Questions About Walking Carcassonne