A slow train journey in search of France's greatest small town

Telegraph

13-04-2025

I have just completed a little rail trip around a small slice of south-west France. I can't tell you how good it was. Well, I can – because I'm about to – but it will take time and be at the outer edge of my abilities. Toulouse is a good place to start because you can fly there from several airports in Britain. Then you catch a local LiO train. This will ease your conscience about the flight, if you have one.
There are many advantages to a rail holiday. You may read, or watch the countryside without fear of crashing into it. There are no worries about parking, driving on the wrong side of the road among lunatic foreigners or breaking down. Insurance and the concern that your car will attract the attention of the criminal classes may be forgotten. And the rail pass costs less than £9 a day.
Western Occitanie is a splendid location for exactly this sort of jaunt. The landscape undulates, though it gets a bit tougher up by the limestone plateaux of the Quercy. It's full of fruit, wine, rivers, and the promise of mellow prosperity. Stop-overs come in small- and medium-sized towns once centres of commerce, religious power, irritable seigneurs and bloodshed.
Now more relaxed, they inhabit their history with panache, and truly have nothing to prove. Follow me.
First leg: Toulouse – Moissac (1 hour)
You head first for Moissac's Abbey of St Peter. It is an undisputed marvel of medieval France. The soaring porch is so deeply rich in sculpture – a three-armed Christ in Judgement, Evangelists, seraphims, 24 Elders, the Holy Family fleeing for Egypt, snakes sucking at the breasts of Lust as feasting Dives is carted off to hell – that it will take you through Lent to take it all in.
Beyond, the cloisters are extraordinary: 76 pillars topped with capitals untouched since the 11th century and so intact that you may still read their stories. See, for instance, St Lawrence on the grill, as Romans blow on the flames. I visit cloisters whenever possible – my aim is to have a set built in the garden at home – but none comes close to the majesty of Moissac.
Then you wander down to the Tarn river, to encounter Moissac's unsung Second World War heroism. Some 500 Jewish children were given refuge here, hidden by locals in and around town. No child was ever betrayed. A walking tour – details from the tourist office – follows the story.
Second leg: Moissac – Montauban (20 mins)
A revelation. Why did no-one tell me about Montauban before? A monumental harmony of pink-red brick, the town has swung from a virulently Calvinist past via Catholic re-establishment to a robust 21st century, full of commerce, art and rugby. Pretty much perfect, then.
The cathedral is shut because bits are falling off, but the St Jacques church compensates. It still bears cannon-ball damage from 1621, when Louis XIII tried to dislodge ruling Protestants. He failed. The central Place Nationale, with two rows of arcades and a town crier every Saturday at 11h44, may be the most satisfying main square in southern France. Intense pedestrian streets – look out for the Couderc hardware shop on Rue de la Resistance for everything from skillets to axes – lead finally to the Ingrès-Bourdelle museum.
Here, in august surroundings, are celebrated Montauban's two most famous sons: neo-classical painter Jean-August-Dominique Ingres and sculptor Antoine Bourdelle. Bourdelle would have been more famous, had he not lived at the same time as Rodin. His Hercules The Archer has arresting dynamism. I'd have it in the garden, along with the cloisters.
Meanwhile, it was Montauban's most famous daughter, playwright Olympe de Gouges, who, having thrown herself wholeheartedly into the French revolution, wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen in 1791. This wasin response to the French revolution's 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man. Olympe was, predictably, guillotined in 1793.
Stay at the newly elegant Mercure Montauban; eat there, too (doubles from £90).
Third leg: Montauban – Cahors (45 mins)
In a loop in the River Lot, Cahors, like most other places round here, was once torn between the bishop and powerful lay interests – merchants, and that sort of person. The bishop was HQ'ed, obviously, in a cathedral distinguished by two domes. This is a grandiose structure, but what impressed me most was the Sainte Coiffe – Holy Headdress – apparently worn by Christ when buried. It's visible, but only just, in a golden reliquary in a chapel behind the choir.
The lay powers hit back with the 14th-century fortified Valentré bridge. This muscular item served a double purpose: to defend against the English and other marauders but also to thumb the nose at the bishop. The lay powers eventually dominated. The bishop needed their money more than they needed his blessing.
Once you've seen the bridge and church, you're free to wander the riverside and some of the narrowest streets in France to take in the covered market and, later, make for the broad Allées Fenelon to eat at L'O A La Bouche.
Stay at the Hotel Terminus, a family-run townhouse just across from the station (doubles from £55).
Fourth leg: Cahors – Figeac (1h 40 mins)
No direct train link here, so take the 889 bus. It's only €2 (£1.70), runs along the Lot valley, which consists of the river, cliffs and villages – and villages on cliffs overlooking the river: St Cirq Lapopie, for instance. Normally, I'd insist you stop by this little marvel of vertical stone streets and surrealism, but it's a hell of a walk up from the bus stop, especially if you're toting luggage.
Onto Figeac. I've said this is the finest small town in France so often that the phrase writes itself. I use any excuse to return. So, rather than pretend I'm not repeating myself, might I direct you to this recent article? Everything in it is correct, but I would make two additions. Firstly, if you have the cash, consider the magnificent Hotel Mercure Viguier du Roy. Secondly, try eating at Le Safran, where fish are treated with skill which makes their sacrifice worthwhile.
Stay at the Hotel Mercure Viguier du Roy (all.accor.com; doubles from £143).
Fifth leg: Figeac – Rodez (1h15)
I'd misjudged Rodez. I'd often driven round it – beneath it, really: the Aveyron county capital climbs a hill – and looked up and seen mainly grey. I wasn't expecting much. Big mistake. Rodez is grey, but also fine, busy and dignified – as you can't appreciate unless you get stuck in. In medieval times it was two places, with two sets of ramparts – one around the cathedral section, the other round where the merchants reigned and built some spectacular houses. The whole centre speaks of the wealth of a town which traded across Europe and beyond.
These days, though, it is best known for the museum dedicated to Pierre Soulages. The artist was born in Rodez (and died 102 years later, in 2022). I'm hopeless on abstract art and have always, secretly, thought that someone who painted essentially only black was perhaps having us on. Thank heavens, then, for Christophe Hazemann, deputy director of the museum and a young man who bristles with enthusiasm for Soulages.
In his company, the paintings lived. The museum attracts 1.5 million visitors a year (that's almost as many as visit the Arc de Triomphe in Paris) and has all sorts of temporary shows and events. Everyone who knows anything reckons Soulages a genius. So please go and decide for yourselves.
Stay at the Art Deco Hotel Mercure Rodez Cathédrale (all.accor.com; doubles from £86).
Sixth leg: Rodez – Albi (1h20)
Albi is sometimes said to be a mini-Toulouse, but it is a considerable southern city in its own right. From the Tarn river, it rises to the Cité Episcopale centre overseen by a cathedral as sense-smacking as any I know. The world's most powerful brick church was intended as a medieval fortress-of-God, hammering home to Cathar heretics that Catholics were back in charge. It rises vertiginously, as sheer, vast and unrelenting as a cliff. Meanwhile, the interior exults with more painting and frescoes – 18,000 square metres (194,000 square feet) – than any other church. Under the organ, a huge Last Judgement has sinners tortured with explosively colourful relish. You have been warned.
Next door, in what was the almost equally herculean bishop's palace, local lad Henri Toulouse-Lautrec is fêted with the greatest collection of his works anywhere. The famous brothel pictures – neither judgemental nor sentimental, let alone erotic – indicate how sensitive he was to the nuances of human reality, perhaps because he was both actor and observer of the low life. A daily diet of absinthe, cognac and related pleasures killed him at 37. A short life, then – and quite a short man (a shade under five feet) – but he's still speaking to us.
Now you may wander. You'll be bewitched by ginnels, half-timbering, nooks, crannies, cloisters and, for lunch, La Forge Du Vieil Alby (laforgeduvieilalby.fr; three courses £17.50). Nearby, at 12 Rue Toulouse-Lautrec, is the artist's birth house. You may not enter, but you might pause. Next door, incidentally, saw the 1741 birth of Jean-Francois de Galaup de Lapérouse, Albi's second most famous son, navigator and what France had instead of Captain James Cook.
To end the day, cross the river back to your hotel, dine there – or maybe stroll the 100 yards down to the Planches Musicales, a snug jazz bar and cellar, with live music at weekends, planches of charcuterie and a tendency to spill out onto the terrace on pleasant evenings. End things with a swing. Tomorrow, you return to Toulouse (1h10mins).