Another WHS site in France, another Gothic cathedral.

With its original features, Sainte-Cécile d'Albi has nothing to do with the one in Bourges, which we visited the same year. Where we visited the archetypal Gothic cathedral, here we discover a completely atypical cathedral built with no fewer than 25 million bricks, a rather rare occurrence for a cathedral in France! Unlike stone, this material does not allow for much imagination, which is probably what gives it its austere appearance at first glance. However, the more recent exterior buttresses and choir turrets give it majesty and slenderness.

This magnificent monument offers a wonderfully colorful interior world, still displaying its original rood screen (15th century), a veritable stone lacework that somewhat disrupts the reading of the interior volume of the cathedral-hall (that is, without side aisles). We crane one's neck to admire the 16th-century paintings on the walls and ceiling: a pure marvel (The photo).

It is like a precious stone carefully placed in the velvet of its jewelry box, but let us not forget that the defensive aspect of the cathedral and the other buildings of the archiepiscopal city of Albi are the trace of a succession of ecclesiastical betrayals, murders, powers assumed and claimed in the aftermath of the crusade against the Cathars...

It's a real discovery to be made, to drag your trainers around the episcopal city with a view of the Tarn (The photo) and through the alleys of the old town, then to enjoy the good weather on the terrace of a restaurant to fully admit that the city of Albi deserves its inscription WHS.

We went there by bike from a nearby farm where we camped and bought chicken livers and this mode of transport is really recommended. We had visited the city for the first time a long time ago, had visited the museum on the work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec but I mainly remember posters, for Art Nouveau lovers only.