| From Quillan, the road runs south through the incredibly narrow défilé de Pierre-Lys to the Pont d'Aliès before swinging 17km east to the village of Lapradelle and the first of the castles, the Château de Puilaurens (Feb, Mar, early-Nov & late-Dec, Sat, Sun & hols 10am–5pm; April–June & Sept daily 10am–6pm; July & Aug daily 9am–8pm; Oct daily 9am–5pm; €3.50). You can either drive up or there's a shorter and fairly gentle path from the hamlet of PUILAURENS. The castle is perched on top of a high, wooded hill at 700m, its fine crenellated walls built around the very top of the rock outcrops. Although the site of a castle from the tenth century, it seems most likely that it was fortified to something like its present extent in the early thirteenth century, when it passed from the king of France to the count of Roussillon, and then to the king of Aragon. It sheltered many Cathars up to 1256, when Chabert de Barbera, the region's de facto ruler, was captured and forced to hand over his strongholds here and at Quéribus further east, to secure his release. The castle remained strategically important, being close to the Spanish border, until 1659, when France annexed Roussillon and the frontier was pushed away to the south. The view from the battlements, which you can climb up to at one point, is quite breathtaking. Five kilometres south of the village is the Hostellerie du Grand Duc in GINCLA (tel 04.68.20.55.02, [email protected]; €40–70; closed in winter), and a gîte (tel 04.68.20.59.39) nearby at Col de Tuilla.
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