Ken's 2nd ancestral tour now in France -
Day Nine - Sorrèze & Castres

Monday 17th May 2004 We thoroughly explored Sorrèze in the morning, finding the old Abbeye Ecole, which was famous in the past as one of the best schools in France but is now a hotel. This was colossal. There was quite a bit of bad art in the few shops & the streets are similar to London's before the Great Fire, one imagined.

Outside the Square shaped vllage

Main Square

Main Square (opposite)

Sorèze from the Black Mountain

The New church

Church glass

In the village

Our friend has a French class at 14:00 on Mondays, so she drove us to Castres, where we had a splendid lunch (paté de foi gras & salmon on spaghetti at the Café de l'Europe for E65). She left us for her class & we explored the old town. Everything was shut, it being a Monday but there was more than enough to see. I particularly liked the old buildings overlooking the river & the new ones there built in the same spirit. This had been a Protestant town & while there was only one Protestant church, only open occasionally in the summer, the street names reeked of left-wing spirit. It was the birthplace of Jean Jaures & his statue dominates the main square. The catholic churches were exceedingly gloomy inside & all their pictures could do with a jolly good clean. Our friend collected us at tea outside the Bar Europe at 15:40 & ran us back to Sorrèze. Boiling hot day at 27°C.

Castries along the river

Town Hall

Jean Jaurés