The Southwest: Occitanie

Toulouse is queen of the southwest, dressed in a seductive pink-orange brick. In her court she holds the medieval prince of Albi, with its fortified cathedral, Carcassonne, with its tremendous fortifications, and a vast rural cortege of market towns, goose farms, castle ruins, abbey churches, and hilltop and valley villages along meandering rivers. Occitanie’s departments Lot, Aveyron, Tarn and Tarn-et-Garonne call for rural wanderlust. Meanwhile Occitanie’s Mediterranean face, tells other tales, with Montpellier and the Nîmes catching the cultural winds of Provence, and Perpignan and Collioure catching the winds from Spain.