Albi

Last weekend we day tripped to a nearby town, Albi. It's the home of the world's largest brick constructed cathedral in the world. It's also the hometown of Toulouse LauTrec and has a nice little museum of his work.

From the outside, the church was impressive in size but not in form. That, however, changed once one was inside. The inside of the Cathedral of St. Cecile was magnificent. Its walls are covered with paintings. This church was built in the 13th and 14th centuries and they brought in an Italian painter to do the walls.

This is the area of the Cathars. While I don't know the whole story of the Cathars (I'm working on it, we bought a book about them), the southwest area of France is home to all of their legend.


The LauTrec museum is housed in a building adjacent to the cathedral. At one time it was the bishop's home. We didn't take any pictures inside the museum, but it was a very good introduction to LauTrec