Albi, always and forever

The same experience can represent such different things for different people.

During my day in Albi with Loulou, she and I took part in exactly the same activities. We barely left each other's sides, chatting away as you can imagine two expat bloggers, from the same state to boot, would do.

Yet Loulou was experiencing a day of discovery: she had heard a lot about Albi but had never been there.

I, on the other hand, was feeling the sharp pull of nostalgia as I wandered through the beautiful city that had been my first French home.

My first French house...my first French job...my first French friends...my first French (and American!) child:

(A few hours before going into induced labor at the now-defunct Clinique Escudié)

Despite the withering heat that wilted me in late spring and summer, I loved Albi and assumed we would make our lives there. But professional changes for my husband led us to leave all too quickly. I lived in Albi for only two years -- but every time I go back it feels like home.

When we moved to Aveyron after a three-year stint in the Touraine region, one of our thoughts was how wonderful it would be to live "so close" to Albi. And upon arriving in the Rodez area, we contacted old Albigeois friends and spent some Saturdays and Sundays in La Ville Rouge.

But Albi was an hour and a half away from where were living, and is still well over an hour's drive despite road improvements. So we get there once in a while, usually to show visitors around, and we have no more regular contact with anyone in the town.

And Albi has changed, generally for the better. The beautiful covered market, which used to be lovely on the outside, but cold and primitive inside, has gotten a nice facelift...

...and especially a fabulous interior redesign:


There are also any number of new, attractive restaurants crying out to be tested, from this Parisian-style bistro in the basement of the covered market...

...to the Restaurant Stéphane Laurens where Loulou and I enjoyed a delicious and reasonably-priced lunch in a classy setting:

But of course many parts of Albi never change a bit -- and had better not do!

The St. Salvy cloisters, accessible by three tiny passageways in the center of town:

The maze of pedestrian streets where I used to get lost even when I lived there:

And the way I still feel I belong there, despite my adjustment to and love for the airy, varied Aveyron department.

Now my eldest daughter, the one who was about to get out from under that awful pink T-shirt I was wearing in the photo above, is thinking of going to college in Albi.

Now that would give me a real reason to go back often.

Will life come full circle that way? I don't want to unduly influence her, but I know I'm game.

Albi, always and forever...