There are plenty of reasons to visit La Couvertoirade – its rich history with the Templars and the Hospitallers, its status as one of France’s “most beautiful villages”, and its distinctive medieval architecture.  But one other thing about the place caught my attention, too…

I’m not an engineer myself, but the best years of my professional life were those I spent working alongside some of the finest engineers to be found in French and American industry.  I like to think that their approach to the world – heavy on data and analytical problem-solving – rubbed off on me in some ways.  In any event, working with them gave me a deep and enduring respect for how people have analyzed and designed solutions throughout human history for the most difficult environmental problems and technical challenges they’ve faced.

That respect was on my mind again earlier this summer when I spent a day exploring La Couvertoirade, one of France’s “most beautiful villages” in the southern département of Aveyron.  The town is often described as a “miniature version of Carcassonne” because it is still surrounded entirely by its medieval walls, and it’s true that this is one of its major attractions.  But I was also struck by how a place like this could arise in the wilderness of southern France, situated in an environment that is naturally hostile to settlement of any kind.

LEARN MORE:  How does a place earn the designation of “most beautiful village” in France?

It’s obvious from the first moment you arrive in the parking lot that this is one of the “plus beaux villages” that’s managed better than many others.  The signs advertise parking for 5 Euros with the note that “maintaining a Templar city is like having a domestic dragon: it’s expensive but worth it!”  From here, you’re invited for a short walk up a tailored gravel path that leads directly to the main gateway – the Port d’Amoun in Occitan – in the forbidding 15^th-century walls.

I spent the first hour walking the entire perimeter of the fortified walls on my own, passing through defensive towers and taking in the spectacular panorama of the village’s interior and the surrounding countryside.  It’s one of those rare places, like Carcassonne, where the medieval walls and original buildings have almost all been preserved with no modern intrusions.

I’ll admit right away that my perception of La Couvertoirade was influenced by the way I got to see it: on a private tour with an excellent guide.  That happened purely by chance: as soon as I arrived within the city walls, I went straight to the tourist office and bought a ticket for one of their scheduled visits.  When I came back to join the tour group…I was the only person who showed up.  For the next 90 minutes, I had the opportunity to see the village through the eyes of an expert on its history, architecture, and modern evolution in one-to-one conversation.

The most obvious question to me was this:  what on earth compelled the Knights Templar – one of the richest and most powerful military orders of the Middle Ages – to build a fortified outpost here in the Aveyron, one of the wildest and most unpopulated parts of France?  Why did they need to be here, on top of a limestone causse with no apparent source of water to support a village?

My guide cited several arguments that must have influenced the choice:

• Beginning early in the 12^th century (at the beginning of the First Crusade), the Templars went looking for places they could control near the crossroads of major routes heading south to the Mediterranean – the main pathway for embarking to Jerusalem and other points in the Middle East.
• They also wanted to establish agricultural centers where farmers could grow grains; develop herds of sheep for food, milk, and wool; and raise the kind of war horses prized by the Templars for their military value.
• And, not entirely the least influence: there were religious communities and noble families in this area willing to donate land for the Templar project.

Of course, the Knights Templar came to an ignominious end.  Too rich, too powerful to be tolerated, they were effectively destroyed by King Philip IV in the years between 1308 and 1314.  Hundreds of Templar leaders were arrested and tortured on charges of heresy, indecency, and idolatry; Jacques DeMolay and two of his subordinates were eventually burned at the stake in Paris.  All the Templars’ vast property holdings were seized and redistributed, in many cases to the “other” order of warrior monks, the Knights Hospitallers.  They inherited everything in and around La Couvertoirade and governed the village until the time of the French Revolution.

It’s hard for us to imagine now how violent this empty corner of France could be in the centuries following the Crusades.  English and French armies moved through the Aveyron during the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453).  Savage bands of armed routiers roamed the region during the 1400s, pushing the people of La Couvertoirade to build the ‘curtain’ walls that connect all the defensive towers and still surround the city today.  And when the Wars of Religion erupted across France, an army of Huguenot Protestants tried (but failed!) to overrun the village in 1562.

La Couvertoirade is certainly remarkable for its history – but there’s that one detail about the location that makes it even more remarkable for the elevated qualities of engineering the Templars and Hospitallers had to deploy to make the place livable: there is no source of running water to serve the people and animals living inside the village walls. To solve this fundamental problem, the Templar founders engineered a complex system for gathering and saving rainwater in quantities sufficient to support the town:

• The whole city is built on a slope to channel rainfall into one of the collection sites.
• Each house has a simple but effective network of gutters to capture the falling rain.

• Inside the defensive towers connecting the city walls, timber mechanisms were built inside the roofs to discourage birds from roosting and fouling the water below.
• There are two artificial “seas” in town: one higher up on the slope to collect water for human consumption, the other lower down to collect it for animals.

• There’s a steep little rock basin in the main square, which (according to legend) women were sent to climb with buckets to gather any water that collected there.

More engineering challenges (and their solutions) are visible as you walk around the village:

An example of typical houses in La Couvertoirade, with living quarters upstairs and animal shelter on the ground floor

• Many of the houses have an external staircase leading to the upper floor. They were designed to have living quarters upstairs, preserving the ground floor for the sheep that became La Couvertoirade’s principal industry.  Today, people still live upstairs in many cases, but the animal quarters below have been converted into shops and art galleries.

• The defensive walls have cantilevered tops to make it difficult for an attacker to place a ladder; the ramparts are pierced in places by holes to allow defenders to drop rocks or hot sand (never boiling water, which was too precious to waste!) on anyone who tried to scale them.

If none of these “techie” sites suits your taste, there are, of course, a couple of important and interesting historical buildings worth a visit:

• The Eglise Saint-Cristol at the top of the village – a small church with 12^th-century foundations built by the Templars.

• The ruined castle, next to the church, built here by the Templars and expanded by the Hospitallers. You’ll need a separate ticket to tour it, and it’s only open a few hours each day, but if your timing is right, it’s worth the effort.  (More engineering trivia: several layers of the stones in the chateau’s wall are cut in perfect rectangles; my guide says this was a way for the Knights to show off their wealth by avoiding commonplace uncut stones.)

• Outside the walls – and a steep hike up the hill – you can see the Moulin du Rédounel, a classic working windmill for grinding grain built in the 17^th century and restored in a 30-year-long project that ended in 2009.

Really, though, it’s the ramparts, the defensive towers, and the dozens of fine medieval houses that give this place so much of its character.  My guide told me that the population of permanent residents in La Couvertoirade has dropped to 25 people who live inside the walls, yet they typically receive 220,000 visitors every year!  (Many of the remaining houses are vacation homes occupied for part of the year.)

I’ve seen similar ratios in several of the other “most beautiful villages” I’ve visited, but this one seems better-positioned than most to entertain such crowds.  There are several restaurants here (in contrast, some other places have zero or one), and a great mix of craft and specialty stores that rise above being touristy or tacky.

A signboard advertises many of the activities that welcome all these visitors, particularly in the “high season” of July and August – classical music concerts, a murder-mystery evening, a night-time walking tour, and so on.  There’s even an American-style Halloween celebration at the end of October.

All that activity seems fitting for a place like La Couvertoirade – a miniature jewel of a village, rich in historical heritage, a “mini-Carcassonne” that’s absolutely worth your time if you happen to be in this corner of France!  (And if you happen to be an engineer, you’ll find even more diversions to justify the visit!)

Have you visited any of the other “Plus Beaux Villages” anywhere else in France?  What was your favorite?  What were the specific attractions that gave them their distinguished character?  Please share your experience in the Comments section below – and while you’re here, I’d be grateful if you would take a second to share this post with someone else who cares about the people, the history, and the culture of the Deep Heart of France!

Unless otherwise noted, all photos in this post are copyright © 2025 by Richard Alexander