The Bruner Family Journey: Albi, Cordes and Onward to Provence

Albi's massive cathedral

After our three-day visit in the Basque Country, we put some serious mileage (is "kilometerage" a word?) on the rental car and hightailed it to Albi, a small city about an hour northeast of Toulouse. We had already been to Toulouse only a week or so before (click here to read about that), but we didn't have enough time to squeeze in Albi and we had to come back this way anyway to get across France to Provence to meet my parents. If that doesn't make any sense, just think of it as a ridiculously circuitous - but by no means random - dot-to-dot journey across and around southern France.

Toulouse-Lautrec advertising poster (photo from the internet)

So, why all the trouble to see Albi? First of all, the city is known for its massive Gothic cathedral, claimed to be the largest brick building in the world. This oddly distinctive edifice makes for a stunning city skyline across the Tarn River. Albi is also known for the Palais de la Berbie, one of the largest and best preserved palaces in France. The palace now houses a museum containing the largest public collection in the world of artworks by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, who lived and worked in Albi. Founded through a donation of works by the artist's mother, it's a fantastic museum and the kids particularly enjoyed the advertising posters - Toulouse-Lautrec didn't necessarily invent the modern poster, but his brilliance certainly elevated and enriched the medium. We also enjoyed a more off-the-beaten-track museum devoted to Jean-François de Galaup, Comté de Lapérouse, an intrepid and forward-thinking 18th century French naval officer and explorer who mysteriously vanished somewhere off the coast of Australia. Add in the city's many well preserved half-timbered buildings, its pretty gardens and scenic views - and you've got an enormously rewarding piece of French history, culture, and landscape.

Resting in Albi

Cordes

I'd previously visited Albi (in 1989), but I didn't have the chance back then to get to Cordes-sur-Ciel, a fortified hill town nearby that dates back to the 13th century. The town was built as a more defensible replacement of an earlier town that was burned to the ground during the Albigensian Crusade (a 45-year military campaign that stemmed from something or other the Catholic Church didn't quite like). In medieval times, Cordes was famous throughout France for its brilliantly colored textiles, but the town lost its prominence in the 16th century due to plague and religious wars, as well as an absence of good takeout restaurants. The town was rediscovered in the 20th century by artists and tourists and it served as a preferred hideaway for celebrities like Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, who is quoted as saying: "In Cordes, everything is beautiful, even regret." (I bet the two of them had some really deep and confusing dinner conversations.) In 1993, the town officially added the "sur-Ciel" part (which means "on the sky") to the end of its name, to signify its location at the top of a hill. Hey, nothing wrong with a little self-marketing. Today, it's an arts-and-crafts town of steep cobblestone streets filled with medieval archways, flowers and dramatic vistas. We talked with a French family from the area, who wholeheartedly supported our decision to make Jeremy and Talia walk all the way up to the top of town. We made it, but not without objection.

At the top of Cordes

Until we arrived, we had not heard of St. Sernin-sur-Rance

As we raced across the south of France to make it to Provence (complying with all applicable speed limits and other driving regulations of course), we decided to settle for the night in Saint Sernin-sur-Rance, a small, scenically situated town that we'd never heard of before. We were getting tired, we needed a place to sleep, and here is where we found it. Perhaps as much as any other place in France, this town exemplifies why we love traveling here. It seemed like we were in the middle of nowhere, but there it was - a gorgeous town in a lush and hilly green landscape, with friendly family accommodations right in the middle of town, housing an on-site restaurant with an extensive wine list that offered a large, lavish three-course meal for only about 20 Euros. The only downside was the extreme grogginess that Eden and I felt when the alarm went off the next morning. Ah, the perils of life of the road in France...