Oct 4: We’re going to Albi

We got up a little earlier than usual – we were off to Albi! We had become adept at walking to and from the train station (see previous posts) but still left ourselves lots of time. Even so, Daniel was moving at a gallop and I could barely keep up. When I checked my watch at the train station we had so much time to spare that I suggested we go for a coffee.  Daniel looked at me as though I was crazy.  Yep one of those days.  Almost in synch we each pulled out our watches – mine said 10:20, his said 11:00.  Suddenly things became much clearer.  After at least 5 years, my watch was in need of a new battery. Time really does stop on a good holiday.

Remember the trouble we had at the metro station? Well where is that kind panhandler when you need him?  In France, you  must “validate” your train ticket at little yellow machines just before you get on the train. The machine repeatedly rejected ours, with a “retournez” message.  We weren’t especially confident about these tickets given that we had had to have a correction made to them earlier in the week, so we assumed this message meant that they were being rejected and “returned” to us.  With minutes to spare Daniel did his thing, which was to find a train official (he has a special talent for this), who listened to our dilemma and had a good laugh before explaining that it simply meant to turn the ticket over so that the machine could read the magnetic strip. Ha ha very funny.

It worked.

Albi, a city an hour NE of Toulouse, had two features drawing us to it. First it was a centre of the Cathar doctrine – considered a heresy by the Catholic church. Although the Church sought peaceful attempts at conversion these were not very successful and after the murder in 1208 of the papal legate (by someone presumed to have been a knight in the employ of Count Raymond of Toulouse), the Church called for a crusade. This was carried out by knights from northern France and Germany and was known as the Albigensian Crusade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharism). 

The second reason for our wanting to visit was that it was the birthplace of Toulouse Lautrec, and there was a collection of paintings bequeathed to the city by his mother. It turned out that the museum is closed on Tuesdays, the day we were there, starting in October.  No tour was in store for us.  This has been a theme.  This evening for example, we went to hear an organ concert at the Musée Augustin, which the tourist office (and all the brochures we have) indicate takes place every Wednesday evening from 8-9pm. Ah, but this particular Wednesday is an “exception”, because of some other spectacle … could we pls return next Wednesday?  Here’s a picture of the organ I was hoping to hear but won’t, until we happen to be in Toulouse again, on a Wednesday.

Back to Albi.  The city is on the Tarn River, which provided clay for the bricks for the construction of Basilica Sainte Cecile. Sainte Cecile is one of the largest brick buildings in the world and is considered to be a masterpiece of southern-french gothic art/architecture.  It’s been classified as a UNESCO world heritage site since 2010.  It’s beyond description, but as you can see from the photo at the beginning, the Basilica dominates the city.  The organ alone is 15 metres high, and has 5 keyboards!  The Palais de la Berbie is also remarkable, with a gorgeous garden and some pretty great vistas.