The great sites of Occitan country

Welcome drink, dinner and accommodation at L’Occitan.

Guided tour of Castres. Emblematic of the town of Castres, the houses along the Agout are easily recognizable by their colorful facades. Stroll through the old streets of the town and discover its magnificent Renaissance-style mansions, and admire the Jardin de l’Évêché, a French-style garden designed by André Le Nôtre and labeled a “Jardin Remarquable” (Remarkable Garden). Stop at the carillon of Notre-Dame de la Platé in Castres: located in the historic center, this carillon has been ringing out since 1847 and is the only instrument in the South of France to play every day.

Lunch at L’Occitan.

Afternoon: departure for Cambounet-sur-le-Sor. In the heart of authentic, unspoiled nature, discover the Château des Plantes estate, a family-owned property in the Tarn, passionately dedicated to the organic cultivation of aromatic plants and to reviving forgotten botanical species of the region. Demonstration of woad (pastel) dyeing by the master woad dyer.

Return via Lautrec, home of pink garlic, classified and labeled one of the “Plus Beaux Villages de France” (Most Beautiful Villages of France). Lautrec offers charming streets with half-timbered houses, narrow passages, an open-air theater, the collegiate church of Saint-Rémy and a covered market hall (15th century).

Dinner and accommodation at L’Occitan.

Morning: departure for Albi, a UNESCO World Heritage Site: guided tour of Old Albi and its winding lanes, passing beautiful mansions and typical Albigensian-style houses (Toulouse-Lautrec’s birthplace, the Saint-Salvy cloister…). Guided tour of Sainte-Cécile cathedral, an imposing fortress built by the Church in the 13th century to demonstrate its power in the aftermath of the crusade against the Albigensians. The largest painted cathedral in Europe.

Lunch in Albi.

Afternoon: visit of the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec: from his early youthful works to his very last canvas.

More than 1,000 works by the Albi-born artist are kept here: drawings, paintings and lithographs, including all 31 posters he designed.

Free time in the Episcopal City.

Stop at a private wine estate for a tasting of Gaillac wines.

Dinner and accommodation at L’Occitan.

Morning: departure for Castelnaudary.

The Canal du Midi: cruise on the Saint Roch riverboat (April to October): departing from Castelnaudary, you will visit the Grand Bassin, the largest body of water between Toulouse and Sète, in which the monuments of the old town are reflected. You will glide along the water, in the shade of majestic plane trees lining a towpath.

When passing through a lock, you will discover the friendliness and age-old skills of the lock keeper.

Cassoulet lunch in the surrounding area.

Afternoon: departure for the Cité de Carcassonne, which has existed for almost 2,500 years. Successively a Roman villa, a medieval viscounty under the Trencavel dynasty, victim of a terrible crusade, destroyed, rebuilt, enlarged and reinforced, abandoned over the centuries, then saved from destruction and finally restored through the major work of Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th century, it was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

Dinner and accommodation at L’Occitan.

Morning: departure for Cordes-sur-Ciel (ascent and descent by little train), voted “Village Préféré des Français 2014” (France’s Favorite Village).

A medieval town at the top of an isolated hill where you can admire local crafts and the 14th-century houses that give it its charm.

Guided tour of the town founded by Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse.

Spit-roasted pork lunch at the Bellevue animal farm.

Afternoon: departure for the Albigensian bastide towns. Castelnau-de-Montmiral: a stronghold reputed to be impregnable in the Middle Ages, Castelnau-de-Montmiral offers an unrivaled view of the Grésigne forest and the mosaic of shapes and colors formed by the fields and hills. This bastide also holds many other treasures.

Its tangled streets and lanes invite you to wander at a contemplative pace.

Puycelsi: listed among the “Plus Beaux Villages de France” (Most Beautiful Villages of France), Puycelsi was founded around the year 1000 by the monks of Aurillac Abbey. The village has preserved its medieval character.

As you wander through the lanes, you will come across half-timbered houses, the town’s granaries and dovecotes, mansion houses, merchants’ houses… Dinner and accommodation at L’Occitan.

Morning: departure for Toulouse.

Visit of Aeroscopia, a museum entirely dedicated to aeronautics and its icons (Caravelle, Concorde, Super Guppy and the Airbus A300B), with more than 30 historic aircraft.

Lunch in Toulouse.

Afternoon: guided tour of the historic center of Toulouse (the Capitole, the Basilica of Saint-Sernin), which also includes a city tour along the inner boulevards. Toulouse owes its nickname “la Ville Rose” (the Pink City) to the brick that clads its facades in warm colors, from the softest pink to flamboyant orange. Once the capital of the Visigoths, today the capital of aeronautics and space, Toulouse invites you to discover its two thousand years of history and has many surprises in store!

Dinner and accommodation at L’Occitan.

Morning: departure for the medieval village of Hautpoul. Visit of the Maison du Bois et du Jouet (House of Wood and Toys), which welcomes you for a fun, interactive presentation of the Montagne Noire through the seasons, an initiatory journey into the world of wood and a discovery of more than 1,200 toys from all over the world, past and present.

Lunch at L’Occitan.

Afternoon: Lacaune. Visit of the Oberti cured meat company: a museum area with old machines in working order in a period setting. A video will then introduce you to the company’s various activities, the drying rooms for saucisson and dry sausage, as well as a demonstration of how to carve a bone-in ham. You will taste a selection of 3 products: Lacaune ham, saucisson and dry sausage.

Return via the Sidobre. It is a world apart, an experience that will not leave you stone-cold. But in the Sidobre, the stone is granite!

Seeing these gigantic boulders defy the laws of gravity, young and old alike will be left wondering. What mysteries does the Peyro Clabado (the nailed stone) hold? It weighs nearly 800 tons and miraculously balances on a smaller rock, on a surface of just one square meter!

Dinner and accommodation at L’Occitan.

Departure after breakfast.