Minerve, one of the Cathar ‘citadels of vertigo’, is perched on a limestone spur at the confluence of two rivers which, over the centuries, have carved deep gorges into an arid plateau of magnificent, untamed beauty.

The town was scarred by the Albigensian Crusade, of which it was one of the martyrs in the 13th century – a tragic episode commemorated by a memorial stone marking a Cathar burning at the stake.

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