Cycling tours in Tarn basin

Tarn valley half way Albi and Millau.

When biking the whole old railway line up to St. Affrique (8-day tour) you will bike over 6 railway bridges and through 10 railway tunnels. For holiday makers who don't like tunnels: you will be able to avoid the longer ones (more than 100m).

Albi is a beautiful, Southern Italian like town along the Tarn river. With its famous architecture, alike Toulouse, which is only 75 kmaway, its cathedral, of the times of the Cathar and its Museum Toulouse Lautrec it is a perfect start and end for a family cycling holiday. Albi, UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

Albi Market at Cathedral

On the banks of the Tarn river in south-west France, the old city of Albi reflects the culmination of a medieval architectural and urban ensemble. Today the Old Bridge (Pont-Vieux), the Saint-Salvi quarter and its church are testimony to its initial development (10th -11th centuries). Following the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathar heretics (13th century) it became a powerful episcopal city. Built in a unique southern French Gothic style from local brick in characteristic red and orange colors, the lofty fortified Cathedral (late 13th century) dominates the city, demonstrating the power regained by the Roman Catholic clergy. Alongside the Cathedral is the vast bishop's Palais de la Berbie, overlooking the river and surrounded by residential quarters that date back to the Middle Ages. The Episcopal City of Albi forms a coherent and homogeneous ensemble of monuments and quarters that has remained largely unchanged over the centuries.