Restored and saved by Viollet-le-Duc, this beautifully walled city with its pointed towers and gleaming walls is reminiscent of medieval tales of knights in shining armour. The name derives from a legend that when the town was besieged, the mayor's wife had a pig force fed with the last of their grain and thrown over the parapets so that the enemy would think they had plenty of food and could withstand the siege; depending on who you ask, the name is then either from the French ''carcase sonne'' (carcass sound) or the Latin ''carcas sona'' (ringing of the bells, in celebration of the wife, a Ms. Carsac). In reality, though, the town's name seems to descend from a 6th-century BC Celtic trading post called ''Carsac''. http://wikitravel.org/en/Carcassonne