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Other than the steam railway previous mentioned, we had two excursions from the Chateau - to Albi, and Moissac.
Albi is known for being one of the centers of Catharism (though this is disputed by historians); in any case the Albigensian Crusade killed a lot of the locals, so Bernard de Castanet, the bishop of Albi in the late 13th century was, shall we say, not very popular. Thus, he built a cathedral and bishops palace, both of which were essentially fortifications. The cathedral is an imposing presence in the town, perhaps more literally that you might expect until you see it. It's also one of the largest brick-built buildings in the world. For reasons that are unclear to me, there's also a limestone portico bolted on. The interior is much more ecclesiatical in feeling, with some very fine high gothic carving, and a lovely decorated choir (rubbish audio guide, though). After looking round the cathedral, I had a pretty indifferent lunch at Le Verdusse - for some reason all the more promising-looking places were closed, and then spent the afternoon gently meandering round the old city.
Moissac is smaller, and really only known for its fine old Abbey (church and cloisters). It also had a quite traumatic car-park (especially in a large hire car without reversing sensors!). We had a look round the Abbey church (some really excellent carvings round the South-West door), and then popped into Le Florentin for a quick lunch. Lunch was very good (the langoustine and prosciutto salad was really very tasty) and not expensive for the set menu, but alas not very speedy, which meant me kept some of the party waiting. After lunch there was time to walk up the hill to a church with an exhibition of Stations of the Cross before the Abbey Cloisters opened. The highlight of these were the carved capitals on the ~50 pillars, which are close enough to the ground to be comfortably admired. They're in varying states of repair, but I found the joyous mix of sacred and profane, serious and silly very pleasing.
We had a few detours on the way back to the Chateau; the first of which was the aquaduct where the Canal du Midi crosses the Tarn. The Canal du Midi is quite an engineering feat, but standing on a bridge with a canal on it over a river is a bit surreal! There were also some very loudly-amorous frogs nearby... Continuing the river theme, we then went to the confluence of the Tarn and Garonne rivers, which join at Really Quite a Wide Body of Water. Finally, since it was only a little out of the way, we stopped at the little hilltop town of Lauzerte (which has buildings surviving from the 13th Century), which was picturesque and briefly diverting.
If you're bored, I've reviewed many of the above on tripadvisor; I think you can see my comments here.
Albi is known for being one of the centers of Catharism (though this is disputed by historians); in any case the Albigensian Crusade killed a lot of the locals, so Bernard de Castanet, the bishop of Albi in the late 13th century was, shall we say, not very popular. Thus, he built a cathedral and bishops palace, both of which were essentially fortifications. The cathedral is an imposing presence in the town, perhaps more literally that you might expect until you see it. It's also one of the largest brick-built buildings in the world. For reasons that are unclear to me, there's also a limestone portico bolted on. The interior is much more ecclesiatical in feeling, with some very fine high gothic carving, and a lovely decorated choir (rubbish audio guide, though). After looking round the cathedral, I had a pretty indifferent lunch at Le Verdusse - for some reason all the more promising-looking places were closed, and then spent the afternoon gently meandering round the old city.
Moissac is smaller, and really only known for its fine old Abbey (church and cloisters). It also had a quite traumatic car-park (especially in a large hire car without reversing sensors!). We had a look round the Abbey church (some really excellent carvings round the South-West door), and then popped into Le Florentin for a quick lunch. Lunch was very good (the langoustine and prosciutto salad was really very tasty) and not expensive for the set menu, but alas not very speedy, which meant me kept some of the party waiting. After lunch there was time to walk up the hill to a church with an exhibition of Stations of the Cross before the Abbey Cloisters opened. The highlight of these were the carved capitals on the ~50 pillars, which are close enough to the ground to be comfortably admired. They're in varying states of repair, but I found the joyous mix of sacred and profane, serious and silly very pleasing.
We had a few detours on the way back to the Chateau; the first of which was the aquaduct where the Canal du Midi crosses the Tarn. The Canal du Midi is quite an engineering feat, but standing on a bridge with a canal on it over a river is a bit surreal! There were also some very loudly-amorous frogs nearby... Continuing the river theme, we then went to the confluence of the Tarn and Garonne rivers, which join at Really Quite a Wide Body of Water. Finally, since it was only a little out of the way, we stopped at the little hilltop town of Lauzerte (which has buildings surviving from the 13th Century), which was picturesque and briefly diverting.
If you're bored, I've reviewed many of the above on tripadvisor; I think you can see my comments here.
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