Places to see in ( Albi - France )

Описание: Places to see in ( Albi - France )

Albi is a town on the Tarn River in southern France, northeast of Toulouse. Dominating the skyline is the 13th-century, red-brick Sainte-Cécile Cathedral, a Gothic landmark with large interior frescoes such as the dramatic “Last Judgment.” The centuries-old Palais de la Berbie houses the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, honoring the Albi-born painter. The Fashion Museum, in a former convent, shows 18th–20th-century costumes.

While it is not exactly undiscovered, Albi is one of those French provincial cities that has only recently come into its own as a tourist destination. The change in the city's fate came in 2009, when its episcopal area - comprising the cathedral and the Palais de la Berbie, the bishop's palace - was classed as a UNESCO world heritage site.

A small city standing on the banks of the river Tarn, Albi has a history rooted in the religious conflicts of the Middle Ages. The "Albigensian Crusade" (1209-1229) was the only medieval crusade conducted not against Islam, but against Christians, specifically against the Cathars, who practiced a form of proto-Protestantism, refusing the authority of the Catholic church.

Albi, capital of the Tarn department, is arguably the most interesting small city in the Midi-Pyrenees region. St. Cecilia's cathedral has always been a remarkable and unique monument, being both fortified and built of brick. On the outside, it looks like some gargantuan array of medieval grain silos; inside, it is all delicate gothic tracery in stone and wood, one of the finest late gothic buildings in France. Of particular interest are the massive murals of the Last judgement, that decorate the whole of the cathedral's western wall.

It is the only large gothic cathedral built out of brick rather than stone - brick being the trditional building material in the area of Albi as in nearby Toulouse and much of the Tarn and Garonne plains.
Next to the cathedral stands the similarly massive and fortified Bishop's palace, Toulouse Lautrec museum. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864-1901, was the great post-impressionist iconographer of Parisian life in the late nineteenth century; he was a native of Albi, and the museum hosts the largest collection of his work, along with a representative collection of late 19th century French art.

Beside the west end of the cathedral, a pedestrian piazza takes you to a vantage point overlooking the river Tarn below, and the old bishop's gardens. Upstream from the cathedral can be seen the Old Bridge, a thousand years old, and still in service today. The bridge can be reached on foot by taking a short walk down the street in front of the entrance to the Toulouse Lautrec museum. The old city of Albi, with its narrow pedestrian streets and historic buildings, is clustered round the cathedral. Of particular interest is the XIIth - XIIIth collegial church of Saint Salvi, with its cloisters.

( Albi - France ) is well know as a tourist destination because of the variety of places you can enjoy while you are visiting Albi . Through a series of videos we will try to show you recommended places to visit in Albi - France

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