Photo: Lynx1211 (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio walking tour inside and around the walled Cité of Carcassonne; the lower town, the Bastide Saint-Louis, has its own tour. It starts at the Porte Narbonnaise, built around 1280 under Philip the Third, with the story of the Cité from Roman Carcaso to the Trencavel viscounts and the fifteen-day siege of August 1209 by the crusade against the Cathars, and the legend of Dame Carcas. It goes on past the Tour du Trésau into the lices, the open strip between the two walls built as a killing ground, to the memorial to Jean-Pierre Cros-Mayrevieille, who campaigned against the demolition of the walls, and the Grand Puits. Inside the Château comtal it visits the courtyard of the Trencavel palace of around 1130, the lapidary museum and the Tour Pinte, the tallest tower in the Cité, then leaves by the Porte d'Aude and its trap of a ramp. Along the western lices it reaches the Tour de l'Évêque, the only tower astride the lices, and the Basilica of Saint-Nazaire and Saint-Celse, a Romanesque nave joined to a Gothic choir begun in 1269, and ends past the Théâtre Jean-Deschamps and the Porte Saint-Nazaire in the southern lices.
17 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 11 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Porte Narbonnaise, Tour du Trésau, Northern Lices and the Late-Antique Wall, Cros-Mayrevieille Memorial, Grand Puits.
Château comtal, Château Courtyard, Lapidary museum, Tour Pinte, Porte d'Aude.
Tour de l'Évêque, Basilica of Saint-Nazaire and Saint-Celse, Saint-Nazaire Romanesque Nave, Saint-Nazaire Gothic Choir, Théâtre Jean-Deschamps, Porte Saint-Nazaire, Southern Lices and the Outer Wall.
The Cité's main gate, built around 1280 under Philip the Third, with its spurred towers, murder holes and the bust of Dame Carcas beside the entrance.
The open strip between the two walls, built as a killing ground, below parts of the late-antique wall laid in small squared stones with courses of brick.
The Trencavel palace of around 1130, turned into a fortress after 1226 and cut off from the town by a deep ditch and its own barbicans.
The western gate above the river Aude, reached by a long, steep ramp whose every bend is overlooked by towers, battlements and the great barbican.
The square Bishop's Tower of the end of the 13th century, the only tower in the Cité that stands astride the lices.
The tall, light Gothic east end that Bishop Bernard de Capendu obtained royal permission to build in 1269, after the dim Romanesque nave.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 17 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 17 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Carcassonne — the Cité, Its Walls and Its Castle, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
17 narration points, including Porte Narbonnaise, Northern Lices and the Late-Antique Wall, Château comtal, Porte d'Aude and Basilica of Saint-Nazaire and Saint-Celse. That is about 21 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 17 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.