Is Carcassonne a good base for touring the South of France

Hi,

Just wondering if any reviewers have used Carcassonne as a base or a first port of call for touring the South of France. Ryanair have started flying here from Cork but I have no idea how far it is from places like Cannes, Nice and Monaco?

Any suggestions or advice welcome.

|||

I have spent a great deal of time in the south of France including countless trips to Carcassonne. However I do not consider Carcassonne as plausible a base for exploring the south of France as Avignon or Aix en Provence.

Ryanair appears to embrace the old axiom %26quot;Built it and they shall come%26quot; or %26quot;Fly there and passengers will follow%26quot;. This is not to suggest that visiting Carcassonne has no merit; only that as a %26quot;base%26quot; I find several other locations offer more.

|||

It is a good base to visit parts of Languedoc Roussillon and parts of Midi-Pyrenees, but it is certainly not a good base to visit the Côte d%26#39;Azur.

|||

From Carcassonne , you can also look to the north for a host of terrific places to visit like %26quot;The Lot%26quot; and the Black Perigord area of the %26quot;Dordogne%26quot;(popular with Brits). Examples; Google (or TA) the Lot and check www.best-of-perigord.tm.fr or www.leseyzies.com and if interested in caves , check www.grottes-en-france for caverns (like Gouffre de Padirac) and Neandertal caves around France (especially in that general area).

|||

Carcassonne-Monaco is around 500km - say a 4hrs 30 drive each way if traffic is light. Too much for a day trip ?

Coastal South of France stretches from Italy to Spain (about 500km). Carcassonne is closer to Spain and inland.

It would be OK as a base for touring Languedoc-Rousillon. If you want to visit the whole of the South of France, Marseille is about half way Italy - Spain. If you are only interested in Provence %26amp; Cote d%26#39;Azur, think of staying near Frejus.

Some other routes :

Cork - Carcassonne Ryanair

Dublin - Carcassonne Ryanair

Dublin - Marseille Aer Lingus

Dublin - Marseille Ryanair

Shannon - Carcassonne Ryanair

Not all the 2008 routes have been announced. Not all run in winter or every day in summer.

Peter

|||

Thank you for the tips. Certainly plenty to choose from.

|||

-:- Message from TripAdvisor staff -:-

This topic was inactive for 6 months and has been closed to new posts. We hope you'll join the conversation by posting to an open topic or starting a new one.

To review the TripAdvisor Forums Posting Guidelines, please follow this link: http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/forums_posting_guidelines.html

We remove posts that do not follow our posting guidelines, and we reserve the right to remove any post for any reason.

Removed on: 12:22 am, September 21, 2009