suinsf

I have read a lot of your helpful trip reports, including those by rhon and StuDudley, and am hoping you can help! Some background: We are meeting up with family for a cruise departing from Barcelona on November 23, and will have a couple of weeks on our own before the cruise. We are avid hikers and fans of Le Tour de France, and are excited to visit some of the sites featured in the Tour. We have homed in on the area south of the A61 between Toulouse and Narbonne, and will avoid the higher elevations on this trip. We’ll be returning to France in early November of 2022 for a river cruise out of Arles, so we are saving the areas to the north of A61 for that trip, including a self-guided inn-to-inn walking tour in the Tarn Gorge. For the current trip, we plan to stay east of Foix/A66; we will visit the areas to the west on a future trip; ideally when the weather is better for hiking and visiting landmarks such as Cirque de Gavarnie and Col du Tourmalet.

We will arrive in Barcelona on November 5 and will pick up our rental car and spend the first night in Girona. We will then spend four nights on the coast between Cadaques and Colliure, exploring the area with coastal walks. We are checking out of our hotel in Banyuls on November 11, and must return the car to the Barcelona airport by 10:00 the morning of November 21.

My first question is whether it is reasonable to return to Barcelona from Foix via the N20 at the end of November? We will have a subcompact car, and would prefer not to take a route that requires chains; I have not been able to find any information on typical road conditions/closures. If we can’t take that route, we would make a big circle (clockwise or counterclockwise) from Girona, then Banyuls, Quillan, Tarascon-sur-Ariege, Foix, Toulouse, Castelnaudary (for Cassoulet), Carcassonne, Narbonne, and back to Barcelona via Girona.

The next question is where to stay? We have a total of 10 nights to work with; if we can take the N20 route, I am thinking that the 10th night would be in Manresa, which looks like a reasonable distance from the Barcelona Airport. We would prefer to spend at least 4 nights (possibly a week) at a self-catering home base, but also want to minimize our daily driving (the eternal dilemma)! We hope to visit several of the Cathar castles, Gorges de Galamus, Carcassonne, Toulouse, Mirepoix, Limoux, St. Hilare, Alet les Bains, Rennes les Bains, Grotte de Niaux (and the Parc de la Prehistoric), Montsegur, Ax-les-Thermes (or another hot springs area), Foix, and the underground river of Labouiche. It seems like for at least part of the trip, it would be convenient to base somewhere between Quillan and Limoux, but that seems a bit far from the Cathar castle area. We can visit the area on our way from Banyuls to Quillan, but it seems like it would be a lot to see in one day. Would it make sense to stay a night somewhere like Saint-Paul de Fenouillet along the way? This is our first visit to this part of France,so any comments or advice would be much appreciated!

StuDudley

It seems like you already have read my 2 itineraries for this region. If not - they are attached here

Don't know about the weather, but I suspect snow is likely. We stayed in a hotel in Foix once, a gite just outside of Foix another time, and a gite near Carcassonne too. Let me know if you want details on these. They may not be gites any more.

Stu Dudley .