Occitanie

Occitanie, formed in 2016 from Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées, takes its name from the Occitan language once spoken across the south of France, the language of the troubadours. Its history is written in stone: the Roman Pont du Gard and Maison Carrée at Nîmes, the hilltop castles linked to the Cathars and the crusade against them in the thirteenth century, and the seventeenth-century Canal du Midi, which joins the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. Toulouse, the regional capital, built in pink brick, is today the centre of Europe’s aircraft industry.

The landscapes cover almost everything France has. The Pyrenees rise to glaciers and great cirques such as Gavarnie; the Mediterranean coast is lined with lagoons, flamingos and fishing ports; the causses of the Aveyron and Lozère are high, empty limestone plateaus cut by the gorges of the Tarn; and in between lie the vineyards of the Languedoc, the most extensive in France, and the pilgrimage towns of the Lot.

For a traveller tired of Paris, Occitanie means sunshine, space and a slower rhythm. Market days, village festivals in summer, Sunday rugby and long lunches under plane trees set the pace. Toulouse and Montpellier are lively cities, but the real draw is the countryside: a walk along the canal towpath, a night in a village on a causse, or a hike towards the Spanish border.

• Glacial cirques of the Pyrenees
• Limestone causses and the Tarn gorges
• Lagoons and beaches of the Gulf of Lion
• Plane-tree-lined banks of the Canal du Midi
• Vineyards of the Languedoc and Roussillon
• Cliff villages of the Lot valley

Facts

• Created on 1 January 2016 from Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées; it has officially been called Occitanie since 28 September 2016.
• The Canal du Midi was inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1996.
• The Pont du Gard has been a World Heritage site since 1985.
• The Causses and the Cévennes agro-pastoral landscape was inscribed by UNESCO in 2011.