Travel France - Tarn
If you sit opposite the Cathédrale de Ste-Cécile in Albi, taking a coffee, like you do, to while away the time between meals, it’s difficult not to start counting bricks. Overlooking the Tarn river, this huge, fortified red-brick monolith of religious architecture that so dominates the town, must have been a hod carrier’s nightmare during the 200 years of building that began in the thirteenth century. Quite how many bricks are up there is anyone’s guess, and if anyone says they know, they’re fibbing.
Albi is the principal town of the Tarn department and enjoyed an economic boom based on textiles and dyeing notably during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the period from which many of the town’s lovely Renaissance mansions date. It is quite a delight to amble along the narrow, cobbled streets in the Old Town where you discover countless cameos of brick-based architecture, half-timbered corbelled houses, narrow passageways and a few other oddments from the past. Given the right time of day and an inclination to do little or less, the Pont Vieux is a splendid place to watch the sun go down before heading into town for dinner.
During the time of the persecution of the religious sect known as the Cathars, Albi was the first town to offer refuge, and in so doing gave its name to what became the Albigensian Crusade against them. The whole area in fact is steeped in the history of this tragic episode, which didn’t end until the fiery massacre at Montségur in the foothills of the Pyrenees in 1244.
These days, Albi is a much more agreeable town of around 70,000 people, less than an hour’s drive from Blagnac airport at Toulouse, and birthplace of the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who was born at the Hôtel de Bosc in 1864. A museum to the artist, in the former Bishop’s Palace, next to the tourist information office, contains images of more than a thousand of Lautrec’s works, and tells the story of the man’s somewhat seedy lifestyle among the nightclubs, brothels and racecourses of Paris.
Medieval Castres
Like Albi, the town of Castres also made its way taking advantage of the river, here the Agout, to produce textiles. Brightly coloured houses along the Quai des Jacobins overhang the river; medieval sweatshops, crammed to the attics – ventilated by windows – with cloth and leather hung out to dry. Focal point of the town is Place Jean Jaurès, a fairly modern rectangle of shops, cafés, brasseries and a scaled-down version of one of the fountains in the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
At one end stands a statue of the man himself, who was born in Castres and in time became a Republican member of Parliament and famed socialist leader. In fact, there are few major towns in France that don’t have a Place or Avenue Jean Jaurès. Castres still hangs its prosperity on wool, in common with nearby Mazamet and Labastide. But there is little remaining of the Middle Ages; the town was almost entirely rebuilt, and families whose wealth came from clothing and textiles contributed a large number of hôtels particuliers like the hôtels Viviers, Leroy and Lacger.
Opposite the municipal theatre, overlooking the Agout, ornate small-leaved lime- and yew-laden gardens with a fountain – the Jardins de l’Évêché – frame the lovely old building (another former Bishop’s Palace) that today houses the Musée de Goya. The museum celebrates the work of Spanish painters, including Goya himself, and is the most important collection in France of the work of Spanish painters from early Catalonian and Aragonian masters to contemporary works.
There is a small charge for admission, but, as a lady walking her dog reminded me, a splendid view of the garden is available for free from a first-floor window.
To the south of the department, above Mazamet, lies La Montagne Noire (the Black Mountain), the south-western tip of the Massif Central, and a broad ridge of densely forested upland that separates Tarn from Aude to the south. The southern slopes are not so heavily afforested, and more typically Mediterranean; the northern slopes comprise mainly oak, beech, fir and spruce, while those across the ridge have little vegetation and have a mixture of garrigue (the typical scrubland of the region), gorse, chestnut, vines and olive trees.
Nature’s masterpiece
Not far from Castres, the Sidobre region is one of nature’s masterpieces, built when she was in a playful mood; a place where massive granite boulders in chaotic formation scatter the landscape. One such giant is the 780-tonne Peyro Clabado, balanced on a tiny plinth and one of those clichéd things which really does have to be seen to be believed.
Along the way from Castres, the tiny village of Burlats, isolated along the Agout and sheltered by mountains, lends itself to a reclusive lifestyle. Here, calm is about as energetic as it gets. Constance, the daughter of Louis VI, came to Burlats to get over her husband, the Count of Toulouse, who had abandoned her. The church she had built as some form of rejection therapy is the most important Romanesque building in Tarn. The adjacent Pavillon d’Adelaide is a rare example of secular Romanesque art. Adelaide, ‘the violet-eyed princess’ and daughter of Constance, regularly held a Love Court in the pavilion, a so-called meeting place for Occitane poets, described by others as a place well-designed to inspire the poetic and carnal emotions of troubadours.
Beyond Burlats, the countryside is splendid, a convoluted lush green landscape of wooded hillsides and farmland. Small villages like Roquecourbe, Vabre and Montredon-Labessonnié are linked by even smaller hamlets where the way of life is truly pastoral, green, vibrant and hands-on. This is not the most direct way between Castres and Albi, but a long looping route initially in the wrong direction following the Agout; you could lose yourself for days in here, and do so willingly. Albi can wait.
Bastide country
This part of France, the Midi-Pyrénées and parts of Languedoc-Roussillon, is bastide country. Bastides are semi-fortified towns, generally dating from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, born of intermittent warfare stemming from the time of the Cathar persecution. Among the best, Cordes-sur-Ciel, a tiny perched village of fewer than 1,000 souls, sits on a rocky outcrop, the Puech de Mordagne, high above the Cérou valley of which it holds a superb view. Like so many other villages in Tarn, Cordes flourished in the years following the end of the Cathar crusades on the production of wool, leather and cloth.
Visitors may not drive up into Cordes, and this is a good thing. The walk from the lower town is neither long nor difficult, and follows a network of steep, winding cobbled streets leading to one of a number of ancient gateways through the bastide fortifications. What lies beyond, as you climb to the central market square, is a wealth of beautiful Gothic houses with intricate Renaissance façades of warm Salles sandstone, all framed by hanging gardens, fig and almond trees. Cordes is a labyrinth of intrigue, and a delight to explore: aim to arrive an hour before lunch, and take your time wandering the streets before winding up to the highest point, where restaurants abound. Nearby there is a workshop producing the renowned Laguiole cutlery, a bookshop selling English language guides for those with flagging French, and a museum, set in a rose-coloured mansion, that contains works of art made entirely from sugar.
On a few of the walls in the village you may spot ornate shells, the medieval waymark symbol of the pilgrim: Cordes lies along one of the routes to Santiago de Compostela. Surprisingly, Cordes doesn’t rank among the Plus Beaux Villages de France, which is somewhat immaterial as you can see for yourself what an oversight this is. Cordes is one of those mesmeric places, far removed from Paris and the major cities of France, that remind you what the ‘real’ France is all about.
Superb views
Just a short way west of Albi, another bastide, Castelnau-sur-Lévis, is easily missed; it certainly doesn’t feature in guidebooks. But the village is overlooked by the ruins of an ancient château with a tall and intact square watch tower – you can climb inside the tower, but I don’t recommend it. The feudal château was built in 1235 by the Lord of Sicard, a lieutenant of the Count of Toulouse, and commands a superb view across the surrounding countryside.
Raymond VII, the Count of Toulouse built a superb bastide when he constructed the fortified village of Castelnau-de-Montmirail. The village has a superb central square with a well, surrounded by timber arcades and timber-framed houses mostly dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Some guidebooks describe Castelnau-de-Montmirail as a leisure centre; well, it is if you enjoy a good lunch. From Castelnau-de-Montmirail I continued west to another splendid little bastide, Puycelci, above the valley of the Vère. This was the preferred château of the counts of Toulouse, probably because it was closest to the extensive forest of Grésigne which lies to the north, and is today an undulating, mainly broadleaved woodland of oak and birch.
The town of Gaillac, on the Tarn, is largely renowned as the centre of a splendid wine region. For many years the wealth of Gaillac was based on river trade, and the old town, a joy to explore, still has some lovely squares with fountains and a network of narrow streets lined with timber and brick houses. Today’s vineyards produce AOC red, white and rosé wines, along with some sparkling wine, the production of which is explained in the old abbey buildings which now house the Maison des Vins de Gaillac.
On the way towards Toulouse, the small town of Lavaur sits on the west bank of the Agout at a crossroads between Toulouse, Castres and Montauban. This is an old fortified town with some charming nooks and crannies, and was besieged by Simon de Montfort during the Cathar crusades, resisting invasion for two months before succumbing.
The abiding joy of Tarn, apart from its idyllic rolling countryside, is its easy-going appeal; you know a place is right when you can’t quite put your finger on what it is that makes it feel comfortable. In Tarn you actually feel good without having to explain why. It certainly arouses a sense of indolence and leisurely self-indulgence, watching the stars come out as you sit with a glass of Gaillac to hand.