Vendee to Carcassone - a road trip

We again adopted the strategy of wandering between visiting family in Vendee and our planned stay in Carcassone, choosing where to stay and what to do as the wind blew us.  That works most of the time, but we hit Cahors planning to stay two days only to find a Blues Festival filling up most of the town. We survived, and ended up in a nicer (read more expensive) hotel than usual.

The region that we traversed is quite different from the rest of France, and this shows up in the food, the wine, the architecture and the scenery.  So it is like discovering a new country.

We found some very pleasant places.

Angoulême

45.6484° N, 0.1562° E

Angoulême is famous for one thing.  Any time you see a publication or a TV program on Romanesque Architecture, the cathedral in Angoulême is the star attraction. And rightly so.  The façade is not only a fine example of the period, but in beautiful condition.  Inside, not so interesting, but the combination of cylindrical and square towers is apparently unique.

The Façade 

The Towers

Angoulême has not rested on its laurels, living off one building.  It is a particularly rich area, and has been for some time. The rich history is recorded in the many fine buildings, and the current opulence is reflected in the many fine banks we observed in town.

There is a well located statue to the honour of a long gone French President, President Carnot. The statue set up the former president as a hero with an angel at his feet.  A little lower we see someone else, unnamed. I can imagine it is his wife, with such a resigned look wondering what all the fuss is about.

Some time in the 70s there was a BD (Bande dessinée - comics for adults) conference held here. It has been repeated every year since, and Angoulême has responded by painting famous scenes from BDs around town, and opening a museum where there is a formidable display of works including the famous Astrix the Gladiator.

Angoulême had one more surprise for us.  There was a free concert in the Hotel du Ville (actually in the internal courtyard).  A harpist (whose name we could not catch) who had performed for Radio France, performed with her two daughters - violin and cello - a range of Spanish tunes.  Imagine Spanish guitar played on a harp and a few tangos thrown in for fun.  A really great evening, free and unexpected.

Cahors

44.4475° N, 1.4420° E

Cahors, like Angoulême has one thing going for it, in this case a bridge. The bridge is the Pont Valentré over the Lot River, and we managed to find ourselves in a hotel room with a view over it.  Hence we took many photos like these.

Night time, obviously

Day time view.

As bridges go, it is a little narrow, not very useful, it took 70 years to build,  and required extensive renovation less than 100 years later. So I was unimpressed.  I preferred the much overlooked 19th century rail bridge just down the river.

Much nicer, isn't it?

Can't beat a bit of steel in a bridge.

I must admit, however, to being rather partial to the weir downstream of the bridge which fed the water mill.

Bridge obviously over powered by its poorer cousin the weir.

Cahors also has the advantage of sitting in the middle of a high quality wine producing area. The locals claim that the only reason Bordeaux is more famous for its wine is that they controlled the river downstream and would not let the exports from the Lot Valley pass to the wide world.  The wine is made of 100% Malbec grape and the samples the waiter chose for us were as good as anything else I have had.  In particular, the waiter (expert in local wines) chose a slightly sweet rose for me to have with my dessert, and it was a great match.

The other part of Cahors which is worth seeing is the Cathedral of Saint Stephen and the attached cloister.  The Cathedral has an impressive set of stain glass windows and a unique domed roof decoration.  The cloister has a lovely garden and interesting decoration.

The stained glass - it looks better in real life.

Domed roof from below.

Cloister garden and towers

Some of the Cloister decoration

Surprisingly, at lunch a day or so later I looked up at the TV expecting to see another replay of the goals from the world cup final, only to find a replay of the Parramatta Eels v Canterbury Bulldogs rugby league game from the night before.  Who said it wasn't an international game?

Saint-Cirq-Lapopie

44.4647° N, 1.6690° E

A short, but difficult, drive from Cahors finds one in Saint-Cirq-Lapopie one of "Les Plus Beaux Villages de France" (yes there is an official list).  This town is on the top of a cliff around 100 metres above the Lot River.  The population is made up almost entirely of restaurateurs and resident artists.  The visitors spend most of their time climbing up to the top of the cliff to see the view.  We also turned around to see the buildings, which seem old, but are probably just average for the area!
 

The whole of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie :  Not particularly large,

Lot River Valley from St CLP

And in the other direction

This is the wall everyone climbs to see the valley and work up an appetite.

Albi

43.9251° N, 2.1486° E

Albi, the centre of the Cathar Heresy, has been blessed with a strong Catholic Church presence since all the heretics met a sticky end.  The result is an imposing Cathedral with the largest "Last Judgement" anywhere (so the claim goes). That did not stop the guardians of the artwork from cutting a hole in it to extend a chapel.  As a result, the largest last judgement does not have a judge, just plenty of naked people getting trashed in hell or looking relieved on the way to eternal life.

It is a very impressive building. Looks like a fortress, and not surprising given the history, but several kings ransoms have been spent to fit out the inside.

The fortress cathedral

Judgement without a judge

Naked people going to heaven and hell

Some of the stone work

No expense spared

The other must see in Albi is the Toulouse-Lautrec museum.  Albi is his birthplace and there is a very good selection of his works there, including many examples of sketches working up to final output.  This is just one of them.

One of the Many sketch to Final presentations at the TLM

There are more pictures of Albi here.

We will go back to Albi.