1: Occitanie
There’s no real reason ever to leave Occitanie. I do so less and less. Based in the region, I’ve been roaming all over France for 36 years. Now, with age, I realise I’ve got almost all I need right here: wife, kids, and farming memories avec parents-in-law, 3,500-feet up in the Lozère mountains. To hand, we’ve Med beaches, rolling uplands in Haut-Languedoc, the Lot and Aveyron and, just beyond the Corbières hills, proper Pyrenean mountains. Obviously, God approves. Why else would He have sent the Virgin Mary to appear at Lourdes?

Meanwhile, there’s more wine here than in any equivalent region in the world. Plus fruit, sun and veg, fish – and rugby, in the two great Occitan cities. Toulouse won the regional capital title, and generally wins at rugby; Montpellier awaits and plots revenge. And right through the region runs a streak of resistance rooted in the 12th and 13th-century Cathar heresy. These days it’s bullfighting and bull-running which hold out against Paris and other interferers. Locals switch from exuberance to fury and back, in the time it takes you to duck. It’s been like that since the Romans. It’s not changing now.

Unmissable sight: The rock-topping castles – Peyrepertuse, Montségur, Quéribus and the rest – where the Cathars held out against Royal catholic, and papal, forces. Mainly in the Aude département, they indicate what a serious business resistance was (and is) round here. Also that heretics hadn’t discovered vertigo.

My favourite hotel: The Château Capitoul just outside Narbonne has a swish of elegance through the rooms in the château and the flanking villas. Two fine restaurants, too (doubles from £184).

Emblematic dish: Cassoulet, obviously. It’s all feisty Occitan life in simmered stew form. Eat it, in slightly different forms, in Toulouse, Carcassonne and, especially, Castelnaudary, where Cassoulet Chez Marty is holder of the 2024 Best Cassoulet In The World title.

This article was first published in August 2024 and has been revised and updated.

© The Telegraph/MSN News

My Note to Add: Cassoulet was invented in Castelnaudary.