Sunday 23 May 2010

Albi

Thursday 20th May.
Albi.

Albi is gorgeous and we were staying in Vieil Albi which is the centre of the city and this area is about to be made a world heritage site. It is almost exclusively traffic free and everywhere you look is seriously impressive and old.



Part of the centre of Albi




We spent a lot of the morning trying to find somewhere to stay tomorrow and having achieved that, we set off for a cultural tour of the town.
The cathedral Sainte-Cecile and the Bishops Palace are a ‘must see’ and are the largest collection of red brick monuments in the world taking 200 years to build started in 1248, it is so massive it is awe inspiring!






Albi cathedral










The inside, owing to the towns early success as ‘woad’ growers and traders, is a gorgeous blue but sadly as the area behind the altar is currently undergoing repairs we were unable to see what is probably it’s best feature the painting of the 7 Deadly Sins.




ceiling to the cathedral.

Apart from spending a lot of time on the internet trying to find somewhere to stay I was also very concerned because I had mislaid my mobile. Calls to the last three places we’d stayed in all proved fruitless and just as I was about to cycle back 15 miles to where we’d last stopped for lunch – it appeared. Roughly where I’d left it, only hiding!!


So that sorted, we walked along the river which is huge at this point and still has the moorings for the boats which took the wode to Toulouse and from there to the Mediterranean and all over the world. Today a boom has been erected across the river and a hydro station inserted which can generate enough electricity for 8,000 homes or 10% of the population of Albi. They are justly proud of the
‘000’s of tons of carbon which this saves.





Hydro boom across the Tarn





One of many Tarn bridges,

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