Every design for Albi

Albi is the red city, so called for the ochre brick of its fortress-like cathedral and the old centre around it, and the birthplace of the painter Toulouse-Lautrec. Its episcopal city, gathered around the Cathédrale Sainte-Cécile d'Albi on the bank of the Tarn, is on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

The feeling people keep from Albi is warmth: brick glowing in the afternoon, the slow river, the sense of a southern town that takes its time. Everyday life runs through the narrow streets between the cathedral, the Cloître Saint-Salvi and the Maison du Vieil Alby, past the Palais de la Berbie, once the archbishops' palace and now home to the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec. The name of the town also lives on in history through the Albigensians, as the Cathars were called.

From the far bank, the view is the one everyone knows: the Pont Vieux, built in 1040, crossing the Tarn beneath the red walls of Sainte-Cécile.