Cathedrale Sainte-Cécile

Upon completion of the food tour with Nastia we thought we should visit Albi’s Cathedral Sainte-Cecile. As previously mentioned, it is the largest brick Cathedral in the world. With it’s close proximity to the river it meant there was plenty of sand, rock and water to make the bricks.

It is similar in its form and the simplicity of its lines to the Gothic churches of the Toulouse region, but exceeds them in size and in the line of its harmoniously distributed buttresses. On the southern side, its fortress-like appearance is softened by the Dominique de Florence doorway and by the four-poster porch, a masterpiece of flamboyant Gothic art. There is also a massive blind bell tower which is 78 metres high, underscoring the cathedral-fortress appearance of the building. Construction began in the 1200s, but there have been additions to the structure in the 1400’s and 1500’s.

The exterior of this building is very plain and more resembles a fortress than a cathedral, but the interior is lavishly decorated with art and sculpture. It has a very ornate choir screen, and walls in bright blues and golds, in line with the Southern French Gothic style. Construction began in 1282 and continued for 200 years. Bernard de Castanet, who became Bishop of Albi in 1276, was the key figure behind the construction of this Gothic cathedral.Read more