For a side trip from Narbonne – only 15km southwest, but nigh impossible without transport of your own – the lovely abbey of FONTFROIDE enjoys a beautiful location, tucked into a fold in the dry cypress-clad hillsides. The extant buildings go back to the twelfth century, with some elegant seventeenth-century additions in the entrance and courtyards, and were in use from their foundation until 1900, first by Benedictines, then Cistercians. It was one of the Cistercian monks, Pierre de Castelnau, whose murder as papal legate set off the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars in 1208.Visits to the restored abbey are only possible on a guided tour (daily April–June & Sept–Oct every 45min 10am–12.15pm & 1.45–5.30pm; July & Aug on the half hour 9.30am–6pm; Nov–March hourly 10am–noon & 2–4pm; €6.25), and star features include the cloister, with its marble pillars and giant wisteria, the church itself, some fine ironwork and the rose garden. The stained glass in the windows of the lay brothers' dormitory consists of fragments from churches in north and eastern France damaged in World War I. Just south of Narbonne, the Étang de Bages et de Sigean forms a large lagoon frequently visited by flamingos. A scenic drive leads out over the étang to Bages village. It's a notably arty community with some houses featuring unusually decorous ceramic drainpipes. From Bages the road continues south along the edge of the étang to PEYRIAC-DE-MER, and the Réserve Africaine Sigean (daily 9am–9pm; €14), a better-than-average wildlife park with over 150 species from Africa and the rest of the world.
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