Photo: Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio walking tour from the foot of Carcassonne's walled Cité, over the river Aude and through the lower town to the Canal du Midi; the Cité has its own tour. It starts at Saint-Gimer, built to Eugène Viollet-le-Duc's design on the site of the Cité's great barbican and consecrated in 1859, and crosses the Pont Vieux, for the whole of the Middle Ages the only way between the Cité and the lower town, to the chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Santé, the last part of the town's oldest hospital. Past the Musée des Beaux-Arts in the old Présidial it follows the line of the lower town's walls, built after the Black Prince burned the open town in 1355, by the Montmorency bastion, Saint-Michel Cathedral and the Calvaire bastion. In the grid laid out under Louis the Ninth in the 1240s it visits the Halles, the Maison des Mémoires where Joë Bousquet lived, the Hôtel de Rolland, now the town hall, Place Carnot and its Fountain of Neptune, Saint-Vincent with its 54-metre bell tower, and the Carmelite church, and ends at the canal port and lock by the station.
14 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 · 20 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.
Église Saint-Gimer, Pont Vieux, Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Santé.
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Montmorency Bastion, Saint-Michel Cathedral, Calvaire Bastion, Covered Market Halls, Maison des Mémoires.
Hôtel de Rolland, Place Carnot, Church of Saint-Vincent, Carmelite Church, Canal du Midi Port and Lock.
Viollet-le-Duc's parish church on the site of the Cité's great barbican, built on a concrete platform and consecrated in June 1859.
The Old Bridge over the Aude, finished around 1320: twelve unequal arches, and until the 19th century the only way from the Cité to the lower town.
The broad southern Gothic parish church of the new town, a cathedral only since 1803, when the bishop's seat moved down from the Cité.
The market square at the heart of the grid Louis the Ninth laid out in the 1240s, with the marble Fountain of Neptune finished in 1771.
The lower town's other parish church, begun in 1269, with an octagonal bell tower 54 metres high and a carillon of 47 bells.
The canal port by the station, and the story of why Riquet's canal first passed several kilometres north of the town.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 14 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. 14 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 Bastide Saint-Louis and the Pont Vieux, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
14 narration points, including Pont Vieux, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Saint-Michel Cathedral, Maison des Mémoires and Hôtel de Rolland. That is about 16 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. 14 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.