We’ve moved ourselves over to Toulouse for the final nights of our tour. We’re all checked into our hotel but it’s dark out so I have nothing to report.
But I want to talk to you about a little city called Albi, population 45,000. Albi is where Tom, our Road Scholar guide, lives. Because Tom lives in Albi, we indeed had lunch with his extended family – who speak only French and so it’s hard to understand how they agreed to come have lunch with 19 English-speaking strangers, but hey!
Tom had told us we would notice a significant architectural difference in Albi vs. Rocamadour and Bordeaux, mostly because Albi’s old center is built from red bricks. The picture above is my first sight of Albi, which was just a huge and wonderful surprise. The picture below (not my pic – borrowed) is the Berbie Palace, a 12th century Gothic bishops’ house that now houses the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum:
Tom walked us through all of this and then told us that we needed to see the cathedral and I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be impressed as I have seen a LOT of cathedrals at this point.
The St. Etienne Cathedral was built in the 13th century and is a mix of Roman and Gothic styles. You can actually see the exterior brick architecture in the picture above in the upper left. But here’s the interior, which just blew me away with the color and gothic details:
Here are two more great views from outside the cathedral – the first one is looking up at the cathedral and the second is the garden right outside the Berbie Palace, just below the cathedral:
Why such a big cathedral in little Albi? The Catholic Church built it after the Catharism Heresy – based in Albi – to show the supremacy of the Catholic Church. The last of the Cathars was killed off in about 1321. Catharism held that the world was a battle between good and evil. The Cathars also criticized the Catholic Church for hypocrisy, greed and the lechery of its clergy. Hmmmmm…
We made our drive today on a Sunday which allowed us to see a glaring difference between France and the US, which is that Sunday is still a big deal here. The picture below is a rest stop we used. The big trucks are not allowed to drive on Sunday and so on Saturday night at 10pm, the truckers pull over and gather in these parking areas for 24 hours. You can see a couple of truckers way out in the distance with a little outdoor living room set out:
And then you can see these two, relaxing and making new friends. Tom, in a move that earned him huge respect from me, went down the line, reading the license plate origination codes on the many trucks – Poland, Estonia, Romania etc.
The rest stop reminded me of something that always makes me so happy in Europe – at least for most of the places I’ve been so far. It’s a slower pace here, a less frenetic pursuit – and that’s one of the greatest thrills for me. The massive cafe culture of European cities could not exist without a different mindset than we have.
Here’s another pic from that rest stop, which also contained a clothing store with some of the best stuff I’ve seen in France. (I am aware that I was in a major fashion site back in Paris) It reminded me of the clothing shopping I like to do at my hometown Fred Meyer grocery store:
We’re off to check out Toulouse on a walking tour. In a fit of tour guide brilliance, Tom is bringing his dog along – the dog, apparently, lives part time in Albi and part time in Toulouse (perhaps Tom does too, but I’m only tracking on dog). Sam and Kris, in an ever-escalating attempt to be Tom’s favorite tour members, have hatched a plan to babysit Tom’s cute dog at an outdoor cafe during our lunch hour and I’ll try to get you a picture of that.
Travels with Valerie 