Another UNESCO.....not getting boring yet.

Saturday 21st October 2017 - Toulouse.

We had pondered on whether their was a connection between, the artist, Toulouse Lautrec and Toulouse.  We had seen no reference to him in Toulouse and we knew that he was associated very much with Paris.  However, we were curious? 

We decided to drive the to somewhere outside Toulouse to have a look at something different.  We went to a town none of us had ever heard of called Albi.  It turned out that the town has.....UNESCO World Heritage Status!  What a surprise.

The Cathedral of Sainte Cecile.  It was exceptionally big on the outside and exceptionally amazing on the inside.

Even John didn't mind going into this church.

Next to the church was the Bishops' Palace (almost as big as the Cathedral) which housed the Musee de Toulouse-Lautrec who was apparently born and lived in Albi before moving to Paris in his later life.

The Musee has more paintings by the artist than anywhere else.  He was a funny little man of about 5 foot tall.  His parents were Count and Countess de Toulouse-Lautrec, so he wasn't from a deprived background.  He died at the age of 37 of alcoholism and syphillis! So not a happy ending.....similar to the early demise of other art masters of the time, I don't think they had a healthy lifestyle.

The gardens and the town are beautiful too.  It is on the Tarn River.


We had a three course lunch at a nice restaurant in the square.  John had the cassoulet, Janice had colin (cod) fish and I had the veal.  It was a lovely town and certainly somewhere I would visit again for longer.

Back to the site at Toulouse having solved our question about Herni Toulouse-Lautrec.  We watched some Monty Python clips in the evening.



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