Day Trips from Toulouse
An image of the walled castle gardens in Montauban and the Tarn River flowing alongside it. August 17, 2021.
The region around the city of Toulouse has treasures of interesting tiny towns and villages to explore, all packed with sights and history.
In fact, we had more recommendations for what to see via short drives from Toulouse than we could reasonably manage, even with a week’s stay. We had to triage and prioritize—and you will, too.
None of the sites we visited as day trips from Toulouse disappointed us. In every case, these towns exceeded our expectations. Around Toulouse, you are spoiled for choice.
But hey—what better reason to go back?
Albi
Albi kept coming up via word of mouth, tourist websites, and our guidebooks as a place we absolutely must see if we visited the Toulouse area. We figured the multisourced recommendations couldn’t take us too far astray.
And oh wow, how they certainly did not.
If you go to the Toulouse area, do not miss seeing Albi.
And if you only have a short time in Albi and must pick only one sight to see, choose to visit the Cathédrale Saint Cécile d’Albi.
The Cathédrale Saint-Cecile sports the iconic red-brick façade of the region around Toulouse, which historians call the “southern French gothic” or “French méridional” style. While you can see this style of church elsewhere in the area, including in Toulouse with its Basilique Saint-Sernin, the most unique aspect of the Saint Cecile Cathedral in Albi is its interior decoration—which borders on psychedelic in its richness, detail, and level of conception.
The pictures I took do not do it justice, but I tried.
I recommend highly that you pay for the audio guide and follow it all the way through to the end of its recordings. While the cathedral will stun you even without it, the guide will help you see details you’ll otherwise miss and will give you the context necessary to fully appreciate what you see, too.
The other main attraction in Albi is the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, which focuses on the famous 19th century artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Though the fragility of his famous posters and prints means that the museum can only display one or two of them, a visit to this museum will reacquaint you with his iconic style and his love for the bohemian nightlife and culture of the Paris neighborhood of Montmartre during his era.
Though I found the museum somewhat disappointing—I expected more posters and more context—and I didn’t leave it loving Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s work more than I did going into it, I can’t imagine visiting Albi and not visiting the museum dedicated to one of its favorite natives if you have the time.
Cordes-sur-Ciel
Bring your sturdy hiking boots for a visit to this steep and utterly gorgeous village, which grew in concentric circles up a highly slanted patch of terrain starting in the early middle ages.
The tourist office has maps that you can use to take a self-guided tour to help you better understand Cordes-sur-Ciel’s history, context, and overall evolution—and given its complexity and interest, I recommend you go for it. (The signs posted sporadically around the town don’t help too much with understanding what you see; simply happening upon them as you walk around doesn’t provide a linear narrative.)
As you tour the little town, you can pop into its multitude of artists’ shops, ateliers, and stores. Over the past several decades, the town has become something of an artists’ colony. (And they must be very hearty artists, indeed, to live full-time or nearly so in a place as steep as this one!)
Montauban
I think we only went to Montauban because it comes up in the dialogue of a movie Arnaud’s father loved. (If you love classic French film, check out “Les Tontons Flingueurs.”)
So, with justification due to low expectations, I can say that the town pleasantly surprised me.
In Montauban, while we may have made certain to take a picture of the city’s road sign as a memento, we also discovered a gorgeous castle with a beautifully manicured walled garden overlooking the Tarn River plus two incredibly well-organized museums.
Connected to the city’s Office of Tourism, a modest though elegantly designed and organized museum outlines the history of the area. Though I imagine all history will have interest if well presented—as this museum manages to accomplish—we found the history of Montauban it provides captivating. In it you’ll find sagas from a town that changed hands several times between the English and the French and long and bitter battles between the Catholics and the Protestants.
Montauban’s flagship museum, the Musée Ingres Bourdelle, brings people from all over the world to the city. (You’ll find it housed in the castle mentioned above.) This museum houses an extensive collection of art and artifacts from a painter known as Jean August Dominique Ingres and, in lesser number, those of another Montauban native, Antoine Bourdelle.
As the French neoclassical period doesn’t hold a ton of interest for me, I visited mainly thinking that when in Montauban, visit Montauban. (Right?) Yet I learned a considerable amount about the painter and his work—more of which I’d seen than I’d realized—and the overall context of his career.
Don’t Skip the Area around Toulouse
Whether you intend to stay in the metropolitan area of Toulouse or plan to simply pass through the region on your way to somewhere else in France, these villages in the greater area will delight you with their history, beauty, and culture.
And don’t stop there! Check out some of the sites in greater Toulouse dedicated to showcasing the metropolitan area’s past and present role in aviation and space history.
P.S.—Need a guide for what to expect from the city of Toulouse? Read my article covering what to see and do in Toulouse.