Languedoc-Roussillon Tourist Attractions: 10 Top Places to Visit
Planning to visit Languedoc-Roussillon? Check out our Languedoc-Roussillon Travel Guide video and see top most Tourist Attractions in Languedoc-Roussillon.
Top Places to visit in Languedoc-Roussillon:
Cirque de Navacelles, La Grotte des Demoiselles, Grotte de la Salamandre, Musee 1900, Le Vallon du Villaret, Chateau de Peyrepertuse, Pic St-Loup, Gorges de Galamus, Lac des Bouillouses, Carcassonne Medieval City
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Narbonne, Aude, Languedoc-Roussillon, France, Europe
Narbonne is a commune in southern France in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. It lies 849 km (528 mi) from Paris in the Aude department, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Once a prosperous port, and a major city in Roman times, it is now located about 15 km (9.3 mi) from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It is marginally the largest commune in Aude, although the prefecture is the slightly smaller commune of Carcassonne. Narbonne is linked to the nearby Canal du Midi and the Aude River by the Canal de la Robine, which runs through the centre of town. The town's original name is very ancient. The earliest known record of its original name is by the Greek Hecataeus of Miletus in the fifth century BCE. In ancient inscriptions the name is sometimes rendered in Latin and sometimes translated into Iberian as Nedhena. Narbonne was established in Gaul in 118 BC, as Colonia Narbo Martius. It was located on the Via Domitia, the first Roman road in Gaul, built at the time of the foundation of the colony, and connecting Italy to Spain. Geographically, Narbonne was therefore located at a very important crossroads because it was situated where the Via Domitia connected to the Via Aquitania, which led toward the Atlantic through Toulouse and Bordeaux. In addition, it was crossed by the Aude River. Surviving members of Julius Caesar's Legio X Equestris were given lands in the area that today is called Narbonne. Politically, Narbonne gained importance as a competitor to Marseille. Julius Caesar settled veterans from his 10th legion there and attempted to develop its port while Marseille was revolting against Roman control. Among the amenities of Narbonne, its rosemary-flower honey was famous among Romans.
Later, the provincia of southern Gaul was named Gallia Narbonensis, after the city, and Narbonne was made its capital. Seat of a powerful administration, the city enjoyed economic and architectural expansion. It was subsequently the capital of the Visigothic province of Septimania, the only territory from Gaul to fend off the Frankish thrust after the Battle of Vouille (507). For 40 years, from 719, Narbonne was part of the Emirate of Cordoba with a strong Gothic presence. The Carolingian Pepin the Short conquered Narbonne from the Muslims in 759 after which it became part of the Carolingian Viscounty of Narbonne. He invited, according to Christian sources, prominent Jews from the Caliphate of Bagdad to settle in Narbonne and establish a major Jewish learning center for Western Europe. In the 12th century, the court of Ermengarde of Narbonne (reigned 1134 to 1192) presided over one of the cultural centers where the spirit of courtly love was developed. In the 11th and 12th centuries, Narbonne was home to an important Jewish exegetical school, which played a pivotal role in the growth and development of the Zarphatic (Judæo-French) and Shuadit (Judæo-Provençal) languages. Jews had settled in Narbonne from about the 5th century, with a community that had risen to approximately 2000 in the 12th century. At this time, Narbonne was frequently mentioned in Talmudic works in connection with its scholars. One source, Abraham ibn Daud of Toledo, gives them an importance similar to the exilarchs of Babylon. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the community went through a series of ups and downs before settling into extended decline. Narbonne itself fell into a slow decline in the 14th century, for a variety of reasons. One was due to a change in the course of the Aude River, which caused increased silting of the navigational access. The river, known as the Atax in ancient times, had always had two main courses which split close to Salelles; one fork going south through Narbonne and then to the sea close to the Clappe Massif, the other heading east to the etang at Vendres close to the current mouth of the river well to the east of the city. The Romans had improved the navigability of the river by building a dam near Salelles and also by canalising the river as it passed through its marshy delta to the sea (then as now the canal was known as the Robine).A major flood in 1320 swept the dam away. The Aude river had a long history of overflowing its banks. When it was a bustling port, the distance from the coast was approximately 5 to 10 km (3 to 6 mi), but at that time the access to the sea was deep enough when the river was in full spate which made communication between port and city unreliable. However, goods could easily be transported by land and in shallow barges from the ports. The changes to the long seashore which resulted from the silting up of the series of graus or openings which were interspersed between the islands which made up the shoreline (St. Martin; St. Lucie) had a more serious impact than the change in course of the river. Other causes of decline were the plague and the raid of Edward, the Black Prince, which caused much devastation.
Le Gard côté patrimoine
Trois joyaux ont l’honneur de figurer sur la liste des classés au patrimoine mondial de l’humanité par l’Unesco : le Pont du Gard, l’abbatiale de Saint-Gilles sur les Chemins de Saint Jacques de Compostelle et les Causses et Cévennes pour leurs paysages exemplaires de l’agropastoralisme méditerranéen. En ce qui concerne les villes ou villages remarqués et labellisés le Gard comptabilise 3 villes d'art et d'histoire : Nîmes la romaine, Uzès cité Renaissance et Beaucaire la médiévale, 4 villages classés parmi les Plus Beaux Villages de France : Aiguèze, La Roque-sur-Cèze, Lussan et Montclus sans oublier les villages de caractère tels Vézénobres ou Barjac... Mais, des remparts médiévaux d’Aigues-Mortes à la Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lez-Avignon, les beautés historiques à visiter ne se limitent pas aux grands labels. Le Gard compte en effet plus de 500 édifices protégés dont un tiers sont classés! Alors n'hésitez plus! Venez les découvrir!
Languedoc Roussillon - France
Que vous aimiez la plage, les sports, la bonne chère, la culture, la nature ou tout cela réuni, dans un camping du Languedoc-Roussillon vous ferez l'expérience de tout cela! vacansoleil.be
Languedoc-Roussillon - Campings Canvas Holidays
Wat maakt een vakantie in de Franse regio Languedoc-Roussillon zo speciaal? Bekijk onze video van deze prachtige regio met schitterende stranden, leuke steden en culturele bezienwaardigheden. Canvas Holidays heeft verschillende campings in deze regio, die een ideale uitvalsbasis zijn om de omgeving te verkennen. (
Languedoc - The Real South of France - DVD Video - Sequence
Languedoc - The Real South of France - DVD Video - a sequence from this, our first journey through the Languedoc which begins at the Millau Bridge -- a spectacular construction regarded as the gateway to the region -- and continues through the ever changing scenery and fascinating history of an area referred to more and more as the Real South of France.
Klassenfahrt Languedoc-Roussillon - unter der Sonne Südfrankreichs
Schon die Römer liebten den Südwesten Frankreichs aufgrund seiner Vielfältigkeit und hinterließen dort ihre Spuren in zahlreichen Bauten - hier unser Video.
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Bordeaux City Attractions, Bordeaux City Centre
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Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.
The municipality (commune) of Bordeaux proper has a population of 241,287 (2012). Together with its suburbs and satellite towns Bordeaux is the center of the Bordeaux Métropole, with 737 492 inhabitants (as for 2012) the 6th largest in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture of the Gironde department. Its inhabitants are called Bordelais (for men) or Bordelaises (women). The term Bordelais may also refer to the city and its surrounding region.
The city's nicknames are La perle d'Aquitaine (The Pearl of Aquitaine), and La Belle Endormie (Sleeping Beauty) in reference to the old center which had black walls due to pollution. Nowadays, this is not the case. In fact, a part of the city, Le Port de La Lune, was almost completely renovated
Maison Carrée, Nîmes, Languedoc-Roussillon, France, Europe
The Maison Carrée is an ancient building in Nîmes, southern France; it is one of the best preserved Roman temples to be found anywhere in the territory of the former Roman Empire. It was built c. 16 BC, and reconstructed in the following years, by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, who was also the original patron of the Pantheon in Rome, and was dedicated or rededicated c. 2-4/5 AD to his two sons, Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar, adopted heirs of Augustus who both died young. The inscription dedicating the temple to Gaius and Lucius was removed in medieval times. However, a local scholar, Jean-François Séguier, was able to reconstruct the inscription in 1758 from the order and number of the holes in the portico's facade, to which the bronze letters had been affixed by projecting tines. According to Séguier's reconstruction, the text of the dedication read (in translation): To Gaius Caesar, son of Augustus, Consul; to Lucius Caesar, son of Augustus, Consul designate; to the princes of youth. During the 19th century the theatre slowly began to recover its original splendour, due to the efforts of Prosper Mérimée, who then held the position of director of Monuments Historiques. Under his direction, restoration work began in 1825 and in 1869 the theatre became the home of a Roman Festival which celebrated the glory of Rome and included a performance of Méhul's opera, Joseph. In the latter part of the century, all the major players of the French classical stage appeared in the Orange festivals, including Sarah Bernhardt who played Phèdre in 1903. Maison Carrée is an example of Vitruvian architecture. Raised on a 2.85 m high podium, the temple dominated the forum of the Roman city, forming a rectangle almost twice as long as it is wide, measuring 26.42 m by 13.54 m. The façade is dominated by a deep portico or pronaos almost a third of the building's length. It is a hexastyle design with six Corinthian columns under the Pediment at either end, and pseudoperipteral in that twenty engaged columns are embedded along the walls of the cella. Above the columns, the architrave is divided by two recessed rows of petrified water drips into three levels with ratios of 1:2:3. Egg-and-dart decoration divides the architrave from the frieze. The frieze is decorated with fine ornamental relief carvings of rosettes and acanthus leaves beneath a row of very fine dentils.
A large door (6.87 m high by 3.27 m wide) leads to the surprisingly small and windowless interior, where the shrine was originally housed. This is now used to house a tourist oriented 3-D film on a series of heroes that arose through Nîmes' history. No ancient decoration remains inside the cella. The building has undergone extensive restoration over the centuries. Until the 19th century, it formed part of a larger complex of adjoining buildings. These were demolished when the Maison Carrée housed what is now the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nîmes (from 1821 to 1907), restoring it to the isolation it would have enjoyed in Roman times. The pronaos was restored in the early part of the 19th century when a new ceiling was provided, designed in the Roman style. The present door was made in 1824. It underwent a further restoration between 1988–1992, during which time it was re-roofed and the square around it was cleared, revealing the outlines of the forum. Sir Norman Foster was commissioned to build a modern art gallery, known as the Carré d'Art, on the far side of the square, to replace the city theater of Nîmes, which had burnt in 1952. This provides a startling contrast to the Maison Carrée but renders many of its features, such as the portico and columns, in steel and glass. The contrast of its modernity is thus muted by the physical resemblance between the two buildings, representing architectural styles 2000 years apart. The Maison Carrée inspired the neoclassical Église de la Madeleine in Paris and in the United States the Virginia State Capitol, which was designed by Thomas Jefferson, who had a stucco model made of the Maison Carrée while he was minister to France in 1785.