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NAJAC occupies an extraordinary site on a conical hill isolated in a wide bend in the deep valley of the Aveyron, 25km south of Villefranche-de-Rouergue and on the Aurillac-Toulouse train line, with one direct train to Paris every day. Its photogenic castle, which graces many a travel poster, sits right on the peak of the hill, while the half-timbered and stone-tiled village houses tail out in a single street along the narrow back of the spur that joins the hill to the valleyside. It's all very attractive and consequently touristy, with the inevitable resident knick-knack shops and craftspeople. The Chateau (April, May & Sept daily 10am-12.30pm & 3-5.30pm; June daily 10am-12.30pm & 3-6.30pm; July & Aug daily 10am-1pm & 3-7pm; Oct Sun 3-5.30pm; last entry 30min before closing; 21F/?3.20) is a model of medieval defensive architecture and was endlessly fought over because of its commanding and impregnable position in a region once rich in silver and copper mines. You can see clearly all the devices for restricting an attacker once he was inside the castle: the covered passages and stairs within the thickness of the walls, the multistorey positions for archers and, of course, the most magnificent all-round view from the top of the keep. In one of the chambers of the keep you can see the stone portraits of St Louis, king of France, his brother Alphonse de Poitiers and Jeanne, the daughter of the count of Toulouse, whose marriage to Alphonse was arranged in 1229 to end the Cathar wars by bringing the domains of Count Raymond and his allies under royal control. It was Alphonse who "modernized" the castle and made the place we see today. Signatures of the masons who worked on it are clearly visible on many stones. Below the rather dull central square stretches the faubourg , a sort of elongated square bordered by houses raised on pillars as in the central square of a bastide , which reduces to a narrow waist of a street overlooked by more ancient houses and leading past a fountain to the castle gate. At the foot of the castle, in the centre of what was the medieval village, stands the very solid-looking church of St-Jean , which the villagers of Najac were forced by the Inquisition to build at their own expense in 1258 as a punishment for their conversion to Catharism. In addition to a lovely silver reliquary and an extraordinary iron cage for holding candles - both dating from the thirteenth century - the church has one architectural oddity: its windows are solid panels of stone from which the lights have been cut out in trefoil form. Below the church, by a derelict farm, a stretch of Roman road survives and, at the bottom of the hill, a thirteenth-century bridge spans the Aveyron. The tourist office is on the faubourg (April-June & Sept Mon-Sat 9am-noon & 2.30-5.30pm; July & Aug Mon-Sat 9am-noon & 2.30-5.30pm, Sun 10am-noon; Oct-March Mon-Sat 9am-noon; tel 05.65.29.72.05, fax 05.65.29.72.29). At the eastern entrance to the faubourg the modern village balances on the shoulder of the spur round an open square where you'll find the Oustal del Barry hotel (tel 05.65.29.74.32, fax 05.65.29.75.32, www.oustal-del-barry.com ; 300-400F/?46-61; closed Nov-March & Mon out of season), whose restaurant is renowned for its subtle and inventive cuisine (closed Mon & Tues lunch out of season; menus from 140F/?21.34). Below Najac there is a campsite , Le Paisserou (tel 05.65.29.72.05; closed Oct-April), with a gite d'etape (same phone no; open all year).
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