Montauban, France 🇫🇷 2023

Date: 18-19th September 2023

Travelled: 60 kms from Bruniquel to Montauban  

Visited: Montauban  

Stayed: Montauban Marina Aire, €10, N44.00760, E01.34160  

Budget: 120 days @ €97 per day

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We escape Bruniquel setting the GPS for Montauban. It’s close enough to a 60 km drive, once we leave the country D road and hit the A road it’s an easy drive.

Montauban is the provincial capital of the Tarn-Garonne. It lies across the banks of the River Tarn. Yes it was established by the Counts of Toulouse in 1144, they were a busy bunch.

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Our digs are on the canal about 1.5 kms from the centrum. The marina aire doesn’t get great reviews on P4N but we found it very pleasant and it has a washing machine, so it’s laundry day.

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First loads underway and we decide to walk into the centrum (Montauban) the get our bearings. The warm days continue so we stick to the shady side of the Rue.

Pictured below, one of the cities icons, the Pont Vieux is under reconstruction so that’s the best I can do.

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Pictured above the Place de Nationale and its amazing water feature. We walk past several times and something different is always happening.

Below the Church of Saint-Jacques. Our guide book referenced the church as coming under cannon fire during the War of Religion (1562-1598), the church still shows the scares.

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We spend a quiet night by the canal, and go for a walk along the canal in the morning. Love walking canals, reminds us of our adventures on the midi.

The scooter is off so it’s a supermarket run first thing whilst the next load of washing is underway.

As the scooter is off we get a bit lazy and scooter into the centrum to do some more exploring or as Pam would say, lets walk the shops.

The day is moving on, the last thing on our highlights is the Museum Ingress. Situated in the former Bishop’s Palace (circa 1363). The museum highlights the collection of Jean-Auguste Ingress who was born in Montauban. Whilst there is the usual collection of works by Raphaël with the baby Jesus appearing to have been born in 13th century Italy, the painting and sculpture by Ingress and Bourdelle make the visit well worth.

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We’re pretty well museumed out as we walk back up to the Place Nationale. We spotted a Thai fusion place yesterday and return there for a late lunch today, which was excellent.

Anyway that was our visit to Montauban.

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Michael + Pam