Grand Site Occitanie Cordes sur Ciel, la cité de charme

Cordes sur Ciel is a very beautiful village built on a rocky peak, overlooking the Cérou valley in the north of the Tarn. There are many viewpoints, and the summer atmosphere of the streets takes us back to an old France past, drawing the source of its charm from the Middle Ages. 

Albert Camus said "In Cordes, everything is beautiful, even regret", because indeed, history has left its indelible mark which, today, characterizes the buildings, the walls and the streets of the village, making the visitor feel, a feeling of a regretful past. In 2014, Corde was elected "Favorite Village of the French" and is still today a stopover on the way to Compostela. 

Cordes is a bastide, a medieval town planning specific to the Occitan territory, 800 years old, and which was built during the troubled period of the crusade against the Albigensians. High place of Catharism, over the centuries, Cordes has developed its crafts and its trade. 

The medieval town planning is embellished by the small cobbled streets which wind along the hill and which pass through fortified gates at the entrances to the city. Cordes was born from the ambition of the Counts of Toulouse who had a military objective when it was built. Like its neighboring villages, Puycelci and Castelnau-de-Montmiral, Cordes sur Ciel has a fortified enclosure, but which has never known a siege. 

The Tarn village conceals many buildings with sculpted facades. Cordes is nicknamed "Cité au 100 ogives" for its high concentration of Gothic civil buildings, such as the Grand Ecuyer's house or the Fompeyrouse house. The largest of these residences is the unmissable Maison du Grand Veneur. A large house with a strong medieval character, right in the center of Cordes, 700 years old and 4 floors high, which has been listed as a Historic Monument of France for 100 years now. 

In the same idea the house of the Grand Fauconnier, also has a sculpted facade but now houses a museum of modern and contemporary art. The Prunet house, for its part, houses the museum "The arts of sugar and chocolate", founded by the chocolate maker and best worker in France Yves Thuriès. This museum allows you to discover structural and food works on different themes: Middle Ages, nature, tales and legends... 

If you are particularly sensitive to history and culture, the Charles Portal Museum will provide you with answers and discoveries. It stores many medieval objects and also deals with the weaver past of Cordes. It is located in the only medieval military building in Cordes, which you can visit. 

In Cordes sur Ciel, many shops have their doors open to the streets, and offer local products and souvenirs. In particular the publisher Larroque, who specialized in the creation of beautiful illuminated books. But also handcrafted products made by the hand of local creators. Paintings, engravings, sculptures, ceramics, enamels, pottery, and even jewellery, ironwork and glasswork are to be discovered through numerous workshops in the village and the surrounding area. Workshops open to the public and to the discovery of traditional know-how. 

The market halls of Cordes are classified as a Historic Monument, they have a well of a remarkable depth of 114 meters. But the current Saturday morning market is below the city. From mid-December to mid-January this market is converted into a truffle market.