Carcassonne Environment, France. France Ideal City Discovery, Touristic Guide.

Perched on a rocky hilltop and bristling with zigzag battlements, stout walls and spiky turrets, the fortified city of Carcassonne looks like something out of a children's storybook when it's seen from afar. A Unesco World Heritage Site since 1997, it's most people's idea of the perfect medieval castle.

The Cité Médiévale, as the old walled town is now known, attracts over four million visitors every year, peaking in high summer. Time your visit for late in the day (or better still, for spring or autumn) to truly appreciate the old town's medieval charm.

Poised atop a hill overlooking lush green countryside and the Aude River, Carcassonne's fortified upper town, known as La Cité, looks lifted from the pages of a storybook-literally, perhaps, as its circle of towers and battlements is said to be the setting for Charles Perrault's classic tale Puss in Boots. With its turrets and castellated walls, it appeals to children and those with a penchant for the Middle Ages.

The lower, newer part of the city is the Ville Basse, where you'll find the train station and a smattering of sights (most notably the Musée des Beaux-Arts). .