Pope Urban II blessed the building materials for the Basilique Saint-Nazaire in 1096, making it one of the very few churches in Europe to have received a papal benediction before a single stone was laid.

The structure that stands today within Carcassonne's walled Cité is a fascinating hybrid: Romanesque at its western end, Gothic at its eastern, joined so seamlessly that most visitors never notice where one style ends and the other begins.

The basilica served as Carcassonne's cathedral for centuries until the bishop moved his throne to the lower town in 1803. It holds fragments of the tomb of Simon de Montfort, the crusader lord who died besieging Toulouse in 1218 and was briefly buried here. The church was granted basilica status in 1898 as a sort of consolation for losing its cathedral title.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace the basilica's layered history, from Visigothic origins through the Cathar crusades to Viollet-le-Duc's nineteenth-century restoration.