CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. 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 Font-Romeu-Odeillo-Via it runs 361 km to Font-Romeu-Odeillo-Via; allow about 7 h 41 of riding. The stops in between: L’enceinte, Château de Puilaurens, Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc and Château de Peyrepertuse. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
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 is where the day begins. Next is L’enceinte.
Villefranche-de-Conflent is a whole town inside a wall. Squeezed into the narrow valley of the Têt where it meets a side stream, it was founded in the eleventh century as a stronghold of the Counts of Cerdanya, and after the Treaty of the Pyrenees turned this area French in 1659 it was refortified by Vauban to hold the valley against Spain. The ramparts that give the place its label, l'enceinte, are part of the UNESCO listing of Vauban's fortifications, and you can walk along the covered galleries inside the walls. High above the town on the mountainside sits Fort Liberia, linked to the village by a long underground stairway.
Read the complete L’enceinte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
L’enceinte comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Château de Puilaurens.
Perched on a rocky spur above a forest of firs and beeches, at around seven hundred metres, the castle of Puilaurens looks like something drawn by a child who loves castles: battlements, towers, walls following every edge of the rock. It is one of the so-called Cathar castles of the Languedoc, a group of fortresses linked to the crusade launched against the Cathar heretics in the thirteenth century. After the region came under French control, the castle was rebuilt as a royal fortress guarding the frontier with the Kingdom of Aragon, which lay just to the south until the seventeenth century. The climb up from the car park is steep but short, and the views from the top over the Fenouillèdes and the Pyrenean foothills are superb.
Read the complete Château de Puilaurens write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 89 km into the recorded legs you reach Château de Puilaurens. Next is Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc.
The Corbières are a rugged knot of hills between Carcassonne and the Pyrenees, covered in garrigue, vineyards and dark oak woods, and dotted with castles that seem to grow out of the rock. After the crusade against the Cathars in the thirteenth century, the French crown took over the region and rebuilt a string of fortresses to guard the border with Aragon: Peyrepertuse, Quéribus, Puilaurens, Termes, Aguilar and the walled city of Carcassonne itself, often called the five sons of Carcassonne.
Read the complete Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc, about halfway. Next is Château de Peyrepertuse.
You see it long before you understand it. From the road below Duilhac, Peyrepertuse looks like part of the mountain: a grey ridge of limestone with walls grown along its spine, so long and thin that people compare it to a stone ship. Up close it is two castles in one. The lower fortress on the eastern end is older, and at the western summit stands the keep of Sant Jordi, added by the French crown after Louis IX took control of the Corbières in the mid-thirteenth century. The site sits around 800 metres up, and the climb from the car park is short but steep, on a rocky path that is no fun in stiff motorcycle boots, so bring trainers if you can.
Read the complete Château de Peyrepertuse write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Château de Peyrepertuse sits at 114 km, about halfway. Next is back through Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc comes up about 220 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Château de Puilaurens.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Château de Puilaurens write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 273 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Château de Puilaurens. Next is back through L’enceinte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete L’enceinte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through L’enceinte, late in the day. Next is 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.
The route ends here after 361 km.
L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis → L’enceinte is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
L’enceinte → Château de Puilaurens is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Château de Puilaurens → Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc → Château de Peyrepertuse is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Château de Peyrepertuse → back through Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Royal Capetian Fortresses of Languedoc → back through Château de Puilaurens is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Château de Puilaurens → back through L’enceinte is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through L’enceinte → L’enceinte et la citadelle de Mont-Louis is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.