France
Cordes-sur-Ciel
A hilltop bastide floating above the morning mist like a town the clouds forgot to take.
On the right mornings mist brims in the valley below and Cordes-sur-Ciel floats above it, a hilltop bastide in south-west France that earns the 'in the sky' half of its name before the sun burns through. Stone lanes climb steeply between Gothic merchant houses whose carved façades have watched the clouds roll underneath for seven centuries, and the air is cool up here even in summer.
Cordes was founded on 4 November 1222 by Raymond VII, the young Count of Toulouse, as one of the first bastides — the fortified new towns of the south — in the turmoil of the Albigensian Crusade. Rings of walls and a succession of gates climb the hill, and along the Grand Rue the houses of the Grand Fauconnier, the Grand Écuyer and the Grand Veneur carry sculpted façades of hunting scenes, beasts and figures that have earned the town its nickname of the city of a hundred Gothic arches — the largest concentration of Gothic town houses in the south of France, raised between the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Craftspeople have taken over many of the old workshops, and the AOC Gaillac vineyards run right to the hill's foot.
Solo
Late afternoon light on the lanes, with the valley opening below the hilltop, rewards the climb.
- Morning mist floods the valley and the hilltop floats above it — the name means 'in the sky' and on the right mornings it earns it.
- Founded in 1222 by the Count of Toulouse, one of the first bastides of the south, with rings of walls and gate after gate climbing the hill.
- Gothic merchant houses line the Grand Rue, their carved façades of hunting scenes and beasts intact since the early 1300s.
- The AOC Gaillac vineyards, among the oldest in France, run right to the hill's foot.
Gaillac wine from the vineyards below — one of the oldest appellations in France, from crisp whites to a sparkling made the old way.
Croquant de Cordes — the town's crisp almond biscuit of flour, egg white and sugar — with a coffee on the hilltop.
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