Cathar Country

The Cathare`s country guide is the official application of the Aude department

Cathar Country, the guide supports you all throughout your stay in Aude and immerses you in the heart of Cathar Country.

Thanks to the interactive map, you can prepare your stay: choose the accommodation, outdoor activities, restaurants and wine estates to discover!

You will have everything you need to visit the 20 sites of Cathar Country brought together in a single application: 10 castles, 7 abbeys, 2 medieval sites and 1 museum.

Each of the 20 sites has its own enhanced walk which takes you on a tour of the monument and accompanies you in your discovery. The voice which guides you on the visit is complemented by photos, images and diagrams which show you a detail or a building since disappeared or immerse you in moments from history, to transport you to the past and bring what you are seeing to life!

The enhanced walks include:
- Magic monocles:
A geotagged 360° sphere which is superimposed over reality, the magical monocle increases the user`s field of vision and is a sensory delight: step by step, the voice tells a story, the sounds transport you and the images are superimposed to create a tale which reveals a detail, the history of a landscape, a building since disappeared, etc.

- History sketches
Little scenes with dialogue which immerse you in a specific historical moment, at the heart of major historic events or anecdotes which allow you to better understand a fact, an historic character or a ceremony at the site being visited.

- Sketches and diagrams
They allow a since-disappeared element to appear, to show the architectural development of a building, draw the user`s eye to a detail, show them the development of a border, etc.

- Educational frescoes
To better understand the major historical, cultural and natural issues of Aude in the past and present, you can scroll through 10 interactive frescoes with your fingertips. You can choose from:
Passions and speeches of the troubadours;
Living the Cathar faith;
Story of a fight against heresy;
The vertiginous citadels;
The divine melody;
Symbolism in the Middle Ages;
Religious orders and disorders;
Compass of the landscapes;
Aude through its wine;
The life of stones.

210 thematic info sheets
You will have access to 210 overview info sheets which allow you to better understand certain subjects mentioned on the walks. Simple, educational and accompanied by illustrations, they are there to make understanding the monument, its history and the landscapes which surround it easier.