Top Reasons to Go

Matisse Madness: Captivating Collioure, the main town of the Côte Vermeille, was where Matisse and Derain went mad with color and created the Fauvist art movement in the early 20th century.

Fairy-Tale Carcassonne: With storybook towers, turrets, and battlements, medieval Carcassonne is the greatest sand castle ever built that didn't wash away.

Tumultuous Toulouse: With rosy roofs and redbrick mansions, the "pink city" of Toulouse is a place where high culture is an evening at an outdoor café, an art form perfected by the 80,000 students who make this city tick.

Albi's Toulouse-Lautrec: Presided over by its fortresslike Cathédrale Ste-Cécile, Albi honors its most famous native son, Toulouse-Lautrec, with the largest museum of his works.

Abbey in the Sky: At an altitude of nearly 3,600 feet, the picture-postcard medieval Abbaye St-Martin du Canigou enjoys a breathtaking (literally) perch.