Cordes-sur-Ciel

Cordes was founded in 1222 by the count of Toulouse as a bastide, a new fortified town, during the Albigensian conflict, and it grew rich on leather and cloth in the following century; the merchants built Gothic houses along the main street with carved facades of animals, hunters and grotesques, unusually elaborate for domestic buildings of the period. It stands on a steep isolated hill, and in autumn and winter mist fills the valley below while the town stays clear, which is where the suffix sur Ciel, meaning on sky, comes from; it was added officially in 1993.

History

In 1222 Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse, granted Cordes its charter as a bastide, generally considered the first of the new fortified towns of south-west France, built between 1222 and 1229 to shelter people displaced by the Albigensian Crusade and to replace the village of Saint-Marcel, burned by Simon de Montfort's troops in 1215. After the Treaty of Paris of 1229 and the marriage of the countess Jeanne to Alphonse, brother of Louis IX, Cordes became part of France in 1271 without a battle. Rodrigo de Villandrando pillaged it in 1436 during the Hundred Years' War, but its houses inside the 13th-century ramparts escaped the Wars of Religion, which is why so much Gothic domestic architecture survives. In the 1940s it drew artists such as Albert Camus, the painter Yves Brayer and the poet Jeanne Ramel-Cals, who liked to call it Cordes-sur-Ciel, and in 1993 the town took that name in her honour (Wikipedia, Cordes-sur-Ciel).

Highlights

• The carved Gothic houses - merchant facades with animals and grotesques.
• The bastide gates - successive rings of walls up the hill.
• The sea of cloud - valley mist below the town on autumn mornings.
• The craft workshops - artisans working along the upper street.

When to go

April to October for the town; autumn and winter mornings for the cloud inversion, which is a weather event rather than a guarantee. Summer brings a medieval festival and crowds.

What to expect

The climb from the car park is steep, and a small road train runs in season for those who need it. The inversion happens on some mornings, not most. Ground floors are largely craft shops.

Nearby

Albi lies southeast; the Sidobre is east.

Key facts