Every design for Montauban

From the Pont Vieux, the Tarn slides past a town built almost entirely of reddish brick, where the little Tescou joins the larger river. Montauban lies on the corridor linking the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, halfway between Cahors and Toulouse, with the Aveyron also crossing the commune and protected river valleys all around it.

What sets the town apart is a stubbornness written into its history. One of the oldest bastides of southern France, it became a Huguenot stronghold and withstood the royal siege that gave French the phrase "les 400 coups". The Musée Ingres honours the painter born here, the Place Nationale gathers the old centre around it, and during the Second World War the Mona Lisa was briefly hidden in a secret vault behind a wine cellar in town.

Stand outside the Église Saint-Jacques and look closely: the marks of the cannonballs are still there in the brick.