We got up very early and hit the road before 8am to make the most of the day. We knew there was a lot we wanted to see so we wanted to get a good start on the day. By around 10.30am we had reached the town of Albi, north of St Felix.

There are two big attractions in this town – a huge and amazing Cathedral built around 1240 and art museum with many works by Toulouse- Lautrec who was born in this town. I really wanted to see the art gallery but I knew the children would not be up for it, so we skipped through to the Cathedral. The Cathedral is a huge building in the centre of town and was built by the Catholic Church shortly after achieving victory over the “heretics” in the town. To me it doesn’t present itself so much as a house of God, as a political statement. And what a statement! The outside of the church is set up like a fortress but inside is like a palace. It really took my breath away with its sumptuous paintings, amazing sculptures and optical illusions ( see the wall on the right). Check out the front of the church. There is a huge picture of judgement day on the left and right and in centre, in front of the altar, is a huge gate or door which comes down depicting Jesus in heaven. The message is clear!

Chris, Michael and I did a tour of the “treasures” of the Cathedral upstairs. In amongst the gold chalices, the wonderful paintings and beautifully decorated boxes are holy relics. It took me a while to decipher these relics because the explanation of everything was in French. I was staring for quite a while at a bronze statue of an arm and and hand that had a “window” in the sleeve – as I looked closer I noticed that the window was giving a view the skeleton of a forearm. Next to the arm was a skull with a round hole in the side of it – apparently the victim of a spear or a sword. I wish I could read French better so I knew who these relics belonged to – perhaps a local saint.

Chris and I agreed that it was a most impressive and intriguing Cathedral but a tiny bit creepy. We couldn’t resist a menu du jour lunch in a small town square (always such great value) before heading off to Cordes sur Ciel (Cordes in the sky).

This beautiful town was actually built by the Cathars as a defence (albeit ultimately an unsuccessful one) against the Crusaders. After the Cathars were captured and burnt, the town enjoyed material success because they were one of the few towns in Europe who could use a local plant to make blue dye (wode) and thus make beautiful cloth. The prosperity of the town is evident as you wander around. Unfortunately a couple of plagues nearly toppled the town, but having attracted mainly artists and artisans, the residents we able to restore the town in the early 1900s to some of its former glory. Today the town sits on top of a hill, full of shops of local artists. It is really beautiful and we could have happily have spent hours and hours there.

We had intended to continue to Rocamadour which is spectacular, but we had truly run out of energy. The drive home felt really long, but what a great day!