Lisle-sur-Tarn (; oc, L'Illa d'Albigés) is a commune in the Tarn department in southern

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Geography

The city is located halfway between

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and fr ...

and

Albi Albi (; oc, Albi ) is a commune in southern France. It is the prefecture of the Tarn department, on the river Tarn, 85 km northeast of Toulouse. Its inhabitants are called ''Albigensians'' (french: Albigeois, Albigeoise(s), oc, albigé ...

on the A68 motorway, in the Gaillac vineyard, on the banks of the Tarn. Historically speaking, it is also located on one of the ancient Ways of St. James.

History

Created as a ''

bastide Bastides are fortified new towns built in medieval Languedoc, Gascony, Aquitaine, England and Wales during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, although some authorities count Mont-de-Marsan and Montauban, which was founded in 1144, as ...

'' by

Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse Raymond VII (July 1197 – 27 September 1249) was Count of Toulouse, Duke of Narbonne and Marquis of Provence from 1222 until his death. Family and marriages Raymond was born at the Château de Beaucaire, the son of Raymond VI of Toulouse ...

in the 13th century, after the destruction of the castle of Montagut, ordered by the

crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...

during the

Albigensian Crusade The Albigensian Crusade or the Cathar Crusade (; 1209–1229) was a military and ideological campaign initiated by Pope Innocent III to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc, southern France. The Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French crow ...

. Thanks to local productions such as

pastel A pastel () is an art medium in a variety of forms including a stick, a square a pebble or a pan of color; though other forms are possible; they consist of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those use ...

and Gaillac wine, the city became an important market with a fluvial port on the Tarn. This extensive heritage, in a region that is still producing wine nowadays, plays an important role in the local tourism-oriented economy.

Demography

Transport

Lisle-sur-Tarn station Lisle-sur-Tarn is a railway station in Lisle-sur-Tarn, Occitanie, France. It is on the Brive–Toulouse (via Capdenac) railway line. The station is served by TER Ter or TER may refer to: Places * River Ter, in Essex, England * Ter (river), in ...

has rail connections to Toulouse, Aurillac, Albi and Rodez.

Notable facts

The village was designed with perpendicular, regularized streets with red-brick half-timbered houses, that are made up of an ensemble of four districts, each one delimited by a fortified gate. The market square is the largest of all the south-western '' bastides'', with about 5,000 m². It was renovated in 2000. The town has a museum on the main square to the artist

Raymond Lafage Raymond Lafage (1656, Lisle-sur-Tarn – 1684, near Toulouse) was a Baroque French artist, notable for his mythological prints and drawings. Biography According to the RKD he was a student of Jean-Pierre Rivalz, and in turn he taught that painte ...

Trivia

The town figures in

Tracy Chevalier Tracy Rose Chevalier (born 19 October 1962) is an American-British novelist. She is best known for her second novel, '' Girl with a Pearl Earring'', which was adapted as a 2003 film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth. Personal backgr ...

's novel ''The Virgin Blue''.

References

Communes of Tarn (department) {{Tarn-geo-stub