Albi and Lautrec

Albi Cathedral

We headed to Albi, a city of 500K, known as the "Red City" As we approached the central square, one has to be impressed by what looks like a huge fortress in front of you. This is the 13th century brick Gothic cathedral. Instead of stone buttresses, here the buttresses are circular in brick. To the left is the Palace de Berbie (the bishop's palace). Formerly there was a cloister between the palace and the cathedral. Above it all is the 78 meter tall tower which was also an observation post for defense. This was to be the "Fortress of the Catholic Faith" as opposed to the Cathar faith which believed in a good and evil god. The cathedral was built between 1282 and 1480. What was unique about this church was inside - here over 35000 meters are painted (between 1509 and 1550) with not only traditional religious scenes, but also many geometric patterns. The amazing fact is that most of the painting has not been restored since the 16th century, yet it is quite vivid. Above the present day altar is a huge organ with 3500 pipes played with five keyboards. Just below the organ is the scene of the last judgement. In the choir area are stone carvings from the 15th century. These carvings did not suffer the defacement from the French Revolution that had occurred elsewhere. The timing for our visit was unique - they were about to celebrate confirmation. So we had the young teenagers all lined up in white with their candles. It forced us to cut short our visit to the Cathedral.

Confirmandi

Outside we visited the French Garden of the Palace de la Berbie, right next to the river Tarn. Inside the Palace is the museum specializing in the works of HenriToulouse-Lautrec. For a man who only lived into his 30's, it was amazing how many works he painted and how many of them are displayed at this museum. He painted a lot of the 'seedier' side of life - brothels, bars, dance halls, as well as interesting portraits of people - their mood seems to come across strongly, while most of the backgrounds are muted. The end of the exhibit featured many of the famous theater posters. We had a delicious lunch (a salad with bacon, pate, and vinegar, as well as a delicious piece of veal with vegetables) right next to the Cathedral. Then we had time to explore the city on our own. I crossed the old bridge for the view and to get a closer look at the old mills that used to operate on the river and then visited the church and cloister of Saint Salvi. After the cathedral, this was somewhat of a disappointment.

Albi's bridges and mills

In the afternoon, we headed to the tiny medieval village of Lautrec, in the middle of the region that grows pink garlic. The buildings here were quite charming and we enjoyed walking the streets to see the houses as well as the view of the countryside. The highlight was climbing to the windmill on top with its view of the village on one side and the black mountains and Pyrenees in the other direction. 

The village of Lautrec

Tonight, our Farewell dinner is at L'autan Tic on the Square of the Capitole. Mary isn't very happy, it was a choice between fish and duck. The duck was very good.