First published: 05/11/22.

Tsunami

Albi

Albi (Inscribed)

Albi by Tsunami

Arriving from the Causses and the Cévennes (by a bus that ran under Millau Viaduct) in the evening, I spent the following morning exploring the city of Albi. I understand that the three main structures in this WHS to admire are the Sainte-Cécile Cathedral, the Palais de la Berbie and the Pont-Vieux. 
 
The interior of the Sainte-Cécile Cathedral was pretty impressive. When I was there on the Saturday morning, however, the door of the rood screen was locked for some reason, and I could not enter the choir and altar area. But I was able to take a decent photo of the altar through the keyhole of the locked door using the zoom lens of my phone.
 
Even though the exterior views of the Sainte-Cécile Cathedral and the Palais de la Berbie (top photo) from the Pont-Vieux (bottom left photo) did not impress me very much, I do agree with the UNESCO description of Albi being "coherent and homogeneous" due to the "southern French Gothic style from local brick in characteristic red and orange colours."
 
I would say that after a few hours walking around this city, you could get a little tired of the homogeneity. So what can I recommend doing? Checking out museums? I prefer Post-Impressionism to Impressionism. But, even though Toulouse-Lautrec is generally considered to be a Post-Impressionist, I am not as big a fan of him as I am of Van Gough. Hiking out into nature? That does not seem to be an option from the center of this city. 
 
Actually, the view from the bridge that impressed me much more than the Cathedral and the Palace was what appeared to be a humongous fish, at least 1.5 meter long, that was swimming slowly under the bridge (bottom right photo).
 
I could not believe my eyes, especially because I could not see it very well as the fish was swimming in the shadow of the bridge and not under the sunlight (lower right yellow part of the photo). So I wanted to throw a rock into the water to chase the fish into the sunlight, but I could not find a rock, as this completely intact, over 1,000 year old stone bridge did not offer any chipped rocks of sort. Frustrated, I spit into the river, which certainly did not do anything to the fish.
 
I walked into the tourist office to inquire about the fish. They told me that it was a catfish, this particular species of catfish can grow as mush as 2.8 m, the catfish was quite a common sight in the River Tarn, and, due to the abundance of this species, people are free to catch them. Further research into this matter revealed that it was commonly called Wels Catfish and had been introduced to rivers in western Europe by amused fishers who caught them in their original habitat in eastern Europe. What??? Something suddenly dawned to me. 
 
When I was living in Chernihiv, Ukraine, I noticed some interesting geographic formation near the city on Google Map and thought about visiting there at one point. It is where the Dnipro River, that constitutes the border between Belarus and Ukraine near Chernihiv, leaves Belarus and flows into the Ukrainian land, suddenly becoming super-wide, creating a sort of elongated lake toward Kyiv. There are hundreds of tiny islands at the northern end of this "lake," on one of which I found a hotel that offers fishing.

When I saw the photo of the huge catfish at the above link, I thought it couldn't be real; it must have been photoshopped, or the catfish must have grown gigantic due to the mutation by radiation from the nearby Chernobyl, like what happened to Godzilla at the Bikini Atoll WHS.
 
But after some more researches before writing this review, I concluded that the photo of the catfish at the above link was totally authentic, and that it was the same species of catfish as the one I saw in Albi. I could not believe my discovery. I also learned that in Japan this catfish is referred to as European Big Catfish.
 
I have no idea if many Europeans grow up playing with this catfish in the rivers in their neighborhood, but I had never seen or even heard of this species before, so it was quite a surprise to me.
 
Sorry about going off topic, but my point is that, if you get tired of this homogeneous city of Albi and have extra time, I would recommend fishing from Pont-Vieux.

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