Tours are only for groups already together and per their demand.

This is not the usual tourist destination. It is located below Carcassonne at the foothill of the Pyrénées which are closer to the Mediterranée. This area is truffled with historic and spiritual sites, abbeys, fortresses, prehistorical caves, artisans who are presersing the arts of making canes, wooden clogs, and horn combs. Its main part is the magnificent Aude valley with fortresses perched high on dizzying pinnacles of rock. The cathar heresy thrived on this part of Languedoc between the 12th and 14th century and these castles were used as defenses. This area has the distinction of more prehistoric caves than any other area of France. This tour offers a variety of activities from visits to the medieval castles to the prehistoric caves with stops at the local artisans. As usual, there is a strong emphasis on gastronomy with visits and tastings at local producers of cheeses, foie gras, bakers... Walks everyday. "It is estimated that a quarter to a third of the people in Languedoc were sympathetic to Cartharism, if not enrolled in the faith so it was an important heresy, perhaps the most important, apart from Protestanism that the church ever faced, and the Europeans take it seriouskly. What the Boston Tea Party is to us, the story of the Cathars (with a very different ending) is to the French: A golden legend, a symbol of righteous refusal. Particularly in the late nineteenth century, when a number of leading intellectual trends - Regionalism, Mysticism, Anti-Authoritarianism, The Cult of Simplicity - locked in with the old heresy, Catharism was widely written about. Interest revived during the Second World War, the cathars looked like an early version of the resistance. Later, they appealed to the counterculture movement born of the sixties. Still today, they are beloved of the vegetarians, pacifists, eco-hikers..." - Joan Acocella, The New Yorker - August 6, 2001