Ariège is a high-mountain department in the Pyrenees, nestled between Spain and Andorra, whose steep-sided valleys and deep forests were home to one of the most distinctive medieval cultures in Europe: Catharism. The Cathar ‘good men’, persecuted by the Albigensian Crusade and the Inquisition from the 13th century onwards, took refuge in the vertiginous fortresses of the Ariège Pyrenees, whose ruins still overlook the department’s villages from their rocky outcrops.
Montségur, the Cathar stronghold whose capture in 1244 marked the end of Occitan resistance, is the most moving site in the department: perched at an altitude of 1,207 metres on its limestone outcrop, it welcomes thousands of pilgrims and historians every year. Foix, whose three-towered count’s castle overlooks the town from its rock, is home to the Ariège Departmental Museum. Roquefixade, Usson, Miglos, Lordat… Cathar castles dot the ridges and passes of the department amidst landscapes of wild grandeur.
Ariège is also a land of prehistory: the Niaux Cave and the Prehistory Park in Tarascon-sur-Ariège serve as a reminder that this region has been inhabited and celebrated since the Palaeolithic era, long before the medieval castles.