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CAHORS, on the River Lot, was the capital of the old province of Quercy. In its time, it has been CAHORS, on the River Lot, was the capital of the old province of Quercy. In its time, it has been a Gallic settlement; a Roman town; a briefly held Moorish possession; a town under English rule; a bastion of Catholicism in the Wars of Religion, sacked in consequence by Henri IV; a university town for four hundred years; and birthplace of the politician Léon Gambetta (1838-82), after whom so many French streets and squares are named. Modern Cahors is a sunny southern backwater, with two interesting sights in its cathedral and the remarkable fourteenth-century Pont Valentré.
While you're in the Cahors area, don't miss out on the local wine, heady and black but dry to the taste and not at all plummy like the Gironde wines from Blaye and Bourg, which use the same Malbec grape.
The Town
Small and easily walk able, the town squats on a peninsula formed by a tight loop in the River Lot, and is protected on the northern side by a rank of fourteenth-century fortifications, with the Barbacane de St-Jean making a breach in the walls.
Right in the middle of the town is the cathedral. Consecrated in 1119, it is the oldest and simplest in plan of the Périgord-style churches. The exterior is not exciting: a heavy square tower dominates the plain west front, whose best feature is the elaborately decorated portal in the street on the north side, where a Christ in Majesty dominates the tympanum, surrounded by angels and apostles, while cherubim fly out of the clouds to relieve him of his halo. Side panels show scenes from the life of St Stephen. The outer ring of figures over the portal shows a line of naked figures being stabbed in the behind and hacked with axes.
Inside, the cathedral is much like St-Front at Périgueux, with a nave lacking aisles and transepts, roofed with two big domes; in the first are fourteenth-century frescoes of the stoning of St Stephen. The Gothic choir and apse are extensively but crudely painted. To their right a door opens into a delicate cloister (July & Aug Mon-Sat 10am-12.30pm & 3-6pm; rest of year enquire at tourist office; 15F/?2.29) in the Flamboyant style, still retaining some intricate, though damaged, carving. On the northwest corner pillar the Virgin is portrayed as a graceful girl with broad brow and ringlets to her waist. In the cloister's northeast corner St Gaubert's chapel holds the Holy Coif, a cloth said to have covered Christ's head in the tomb, which legend has it Bishop Géraud de Cardaillac brought back from the Holy Land in the twelfth century.
The area between the cathedral and the river is filled by a warren of narrow lanes and alleys, most of them handsomely restored during the last ten years. Many of the houses, turreted and built of flat, thin, southern brick, date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Rue Nationale, rue Bergougnioux and rue Lastié are particularly interesting, along with rue du Château-du-Roi and its extension, rue des Soubirous, to the north. It's worth taking a look at the impressive Hôtel d'Issale in rue Bergougnioux and the Hôtel de Roaldès in place Henri-IV; also of interest are the Hôpital Grossia in rue des Soubirous and the Palais Duèze , further north opposite the church of St-Barthélémy, built for the brothers of Pope John XXII in the fourteenth century.
Immediately south of the cathedral, the lime-bordered place Jean-Jacques-Chapou commemorates a local trade unionist and Resistance leader, killed in a German ambush on July 17, 1944. Next to it are the covered market and a building still bearing the name Gambetta, where the family of the famous deputy of Belleville in Paris had their grocery shop?
The reason most people venture to Cahors is the dramatic Pont Valentré. Its three powerful towers, originally closed by portcullises and gates, made it effectively an independent fortress, guarding the river crossing on the west side of town. One of the finest surviving bridges of its time, it is, rightly, one of the most photographed monuments in France. Just upstream from the bridge is a resurgent river known as the Fontaine des Chartreux, flowing from the valley side. The Roman town was named Divona Carducorum after it, and it still supplies Cahors with drinking water. a Gallic settlement; a Roman town; a briefly held Moorish possession; a town under English rule; a bastion of Catholicism in the Wars of Religion, sacked in consequence by Henri IV; a university town for four hundred years; and birthplace of the politician Léon Gambetta (1838-82), after whom so many French streets and squares are named. Modern Cahors is a sunny southern backwater, with two interesting sights in its cathedral and the remarkable fourteenth-century Pont Valentré.
While you're in the Cahors area, don't miss out on the local wine, heady and black but dry to the taste and not at all plummy like the Gironde wines from Blaye and Bourg, which use the same Malbec grape.
The Town
Small and easily walk able, the town squats on a peninsula formed by a tight loop in the River Lot, and is protected on the northern side by a rank of fourteenth-century fortifications , with the Barbacane de St-Jean making a breach in the walls.
Right in the middle of the town is the cathedral. Consecrated in 1119, it is the oldest and simplest in plan of the Périgord-style churches. The exterior is not exciting: a heavy square tower dominates the plain west front, whose best feature is the elaborately decorated portal in the street on the north side, where a Christ in Majesty dominates the tympanum, surrounded by angels and apostles, while cherubim fly out of the clouds to relieve him of his halo. Side panels show scenes from the life of St Stephen. The outer ring of figures over the portal shows a line of naked figures being stabbed in the behind and hacked with axes.
Inside, the cathedral is much like St-Front at Périgueux, with a nave lacking aisles and transepts, roofed with two big domes; in the first are fourteenth-century frescoes of the stoning of St Stephen. The Gothic choir and apse are extensively but crudely painted. To their right a door opens into a delicate cloister (July & Aug Mon-Sat 10am-12.30pm & 3-6pm; rest of year enquire at tourist office; 15F/?2.29) in the Flamboyant style, still retaining some intricate, though damaged, carving. On the northwest corner pillar the Virgin is portrayed as a graceful girl with broad brow and ringlets to her waist. In the cloister's northeast corner St Gaubert's chapel holds the Holy Coif, a cloth said to have covered Christ's head in the tomb, which legend has it Bishop Géraud de Cardaillac brought back from the Holy Land in the twelfth century.
The area between the cathedral and the river is filled by a warren of narrow lanes and alleys, most of them handsomely restored during the last ten years. Many of the houses, turreted and built of flat, thin, southern brick, date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Rue Nationale, rue Bergougnioux and rue Lastié are particularly interesting, along with rue du Château-du-Roi and its extension, rue des Soubirous, to the north. It's worth taking a look at the impressive Hôtel d'Issale in rue Bergougnioux and the Hôtel de Roaldès in place Henri-IV; also of interest are the Hôpital Grossia in rue des Soubirous and the Palais Duèze , further north opposite the church of St-Barthélémy, built for the brothers of Pope John XXII in the fourteenth century.
Immediately south of the cathedral, the lime-bordered place Jean-Jacques-Chapou commemorates a local trade unionist and Resistance leader, killed in a German ambush on July 17, 1944. Next to it is the covered market and a building still bearing the name Gambetta, where the family of the famous deputy of Belleville in Paris had their grocery shop.
The reason most people venture to Cahors is the dramatic Pont Valentré. Its three powerful towers, originally closed by portcullises and gates, made it effectively an independent fortress, guarding the river crossing on the west side of town. One of the finest surviving bridges of its time, it is, rightly, one of the most photographed monuments in France. Just upstream from the bridge is a resurgent river known as the Fontaine des Chartreux, flowing from the valley side. The Roman town was named Divona Carducorum after it, and it still supplies Cahors with drinking water.
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