CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
From Perpignan it runs 403 km to Perpignan; allow about 6 h 47 of riding. The stops in between: L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis, Château et remparts de Carcassonne, Historic Fortified City of Carcassonne and back through Historic Fortified City of Carcassonne. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Perpignan feels more Catalan than French on a good day, and most locals would not argue. The city was the mainland capital of the Kingdom of Majorca in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the Palais des Rois de Majorque still sits on its hill, a fortress-palace of pink brick with a double-storey courtyard. In the old centre the Castillet, a squat brick gate with crenellated towers, guards the entrance to the lanes, and street signs often come in two languages. In 1963 Salvador Dalí declared the railway station to be the centre of the universe, and the city has never quite let go of the joke.
Read the complete Perpignan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Perpignan is where the day begins. Next is L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis.
At around sixteen hundred metres, Mont-Louis is often described as the highest fortified town in France, and it feels like a frontier outpost even today. Vauban designed it in 1679 to guard the newly drawn border after the Treaty of the Pyrenees, placing it on a strategic shelf at the meeting of three valleys: the Têt dropping towards Perpignan, the Aude running north, and the wide basin of the Cerdanya opening to the west. The citadel is still used by the French army, home to a commando training centre, so parts of it are closed to visitors, but the walls and the small grid of streets inside them are free to wander.
Read the complete L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis comes up 50 km in. Next is Château et remparts de Carcassonne.
Carcassonne has two faces. Down by the river Aude sits the ordinary lower town, a grid of streets laid out in the thirteenth century around a market square, and on the hill above rises the Cité, a double ring of walls and fifty-odd towers that looks like the illustration to a children's book about knights. The Cité was inscribed by UNESCO in 1997, and it is one of the most visited monuments in France, with the nearest sizeable roads and everything a rider needs just a kilometre away in the modern town.
Read the complete Château et remparts de Carcassonne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least 147 km in you reach Château et remparts de Carcassonne. Next is Historic Fortified City of Carcassonne.
Carcassonne is the fortress that every child draws when asked for a castle: a double ring of walls with about fifty towers, pointed slate roofs, a drawbridge and a keep, rising from a hilltop above the river Aude. The medieval city, known as La Cité, is the largest walled town in Europe still standing, and much of what you see was heavily restored in the nineteenth century by the architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, whose steep roofs on the towers are more northern French than local. The result is spectacular if debatable, and UNESCO listed the site in 1997.
Read the complete Historic Fortified City of Carcassonne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Fortified City of Carcassonne, about halfway. Next is Historic Fortified City of Carcassonne.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Fortified City of Carcassonne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Historic Fortified City of Carcassonne sits at 199 km, about halfway. Next is back through Historic Fortified City of Carcassonne.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Historic Fortified City of Carcassonne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Historic Fortified City of Carcassonne comes up 249 km in. Next is back through Château et remparts de Carcassonne.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Château et remparts de Carcassonne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
299 km in you reach back through Château et remparts de Carcassonne. Next is back through L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis, late in the day. Next is Perpignan.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Perpignan write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 403 km.
Perpignan → L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis → Château et remparts de Carcassonne is 108 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Château et remparts de Carcassonne → back through L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis is 108 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis → Perpignan is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.