The rabastin country

On right bank of the Tarn, the red of brick of the village of Rabastens is reflected in water green emerald of the river. You will be envoûtés by its old workings, its moyennâgeux ramparts and its pitorresques lanes...

The ramparts, proudly high above the Tarn, shelter the last door of the city. With the outlet of this door draw up the ruins of the mill, whose activity is attested since XIIIème century. The hotel of Castagne, splendid the top of its seven stages, owes its name with its park which contained chestnuts. It is a private college today. The hotel of Fite collects the Museum of the Rabastinois Country today. The district of the castle, between ramparts, quay of the release and the Rotavolp brook, constituted the first city which one called "Lo manor house". Do not miss the place of Plô bordered of beautiful half-timbered houses. You can reach the edges of the Tarn by the Moulinal ditch. And behind an imposing frontage of the XIXème century, the hotel of Rolland, hotel seigneurial or strong house are which dominated the ditches of the city close to the bridge del Pâ. The town hall ancine priory which communicated with the Notre Dame church of the Borough acted as prison. Pass in the shade plane trees on the walks of the Strings, built on the old ditches of XVIIIème at the XXème century. The church of the penitent white, style neogothic, was built at the XIXème century. Throw a glance with the laundrettes of Rabastens, city where water abounds. And do not forget to visit our beautiful Notre Dame church

Grazac offers a particularly picturesque landscape of slopes and wood crossed by a hiking trail marked out. It formerly formed part of the consulate of Rabastens and was attached to the diocese of Montauban. The church Holy-Anne The church, high at the end of XIVe century and dedicated to Saint-Salvy, preserves beautiful retables out of wooden carved of the XVIIe century and a mural decoration paints due to Fernand Augé (1896) and Paul Prouho (1900).

Bordering on Haute-Garonne, Roquemaure, is located at 236 mèttres altitude on a plate which borders right bank of the Tarn from where the sight extends from Mézens with Bessières. The place was inhabited as of prehistory as testify the hundreds to them the double-side ones and polished axes discovered at the XIXe century, preserved at the museums of Foix and Rabastens. This place could be occupied about the 7th century. Roquemaure, or extremely black castle in occitan, was formerly a strengthened village. Certainly that the Moors had an establishment there.

This castle was mentioned in our country only towards the end of XIVe century. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, the lorry drivers seized and plundered the castle. Once ruined, the castle was raised and thanks to the protection of the Viscount of Bruniquel, which was the lord, it became flourishing. In XVe century, the castle became a baronnery. With XVIIIe, the seigniory was sold by the son of Guillaume Dejean, adviser at the Parliament of Toulouse. Boyer de Castanet, marquis de Tauriac, preserved it until the Revolution. A hiking trail, beam slopes and small valley timbered, connects Roquemaure to Grazac and Mézens.

Mézens, whose origin is wisigothic, is a small village of 330 inhabitants. It is blotti with the foot of a medieval castle, rebuilt in XIIIe century by Pilfort de Rabastens with the site of a fort destroyed by the militia of Toulouse in 1204. The site was strategic, with the confluence of the Tarn and the brook of the Last one which formed the limit between the Toulouse one and the Albigensian. The pilgrims, on the way of Compostelle, passed by Mézens to cross the Tarn. An old people's home, built in 1249, offered a shelter to them. On the principal place, the church, devoted in 1662, preserves in the chorus four large fabrics of the painter Paul Prouho gone back to 1903.

In edge of the forest, established on a cliff dominating the valley of Agoût and discovering a superb landscape, the village of Giroussens succeeded a fortified camp mentioned in 1156. A country house is built there in second half of XIIIe century, a castle is built in the vicinity on a hillock. Between 1330 and 1356, GUI of Comminges in fact a den of adventurers from where, in chief of band, it leaves to plunder the area. The castle falls in ruin following the wars of religion. A new castle, Belbèze, of confined square plan of four turns to the angles, is built in the north of the ditches. The artist Lucie Bouniol (1896-1988), lived and there had his workshop there Pottery

The activity of many potters established with orée of the close forest made the prosperity of a small city: Giroussens, which is in Albigensian Country. In XVème century, an important center of pottery apporant its products on all the markets neighbourhood occurred. And during the reign of Louis XIV, the terra cotta of Giroussens knew its apogee. The memory of the modest craftsmen is well preserved in certain sites.

On left bank of the Tarn, Loupiac extends, with a dispersed habitat, in the fertile plain formed by the first two terraces of the Tarn. As of Antiquity, a Gallo-Roman villa exists, not far from the current village, the brook of Praoutis. Occupied by the Visigoths, it becomes a hamlet at the time Mérovingienne. Close to the confluence to the Tarn and brook of Parisot, in a timbered escarpment, the old priory of Avignonet was a dependence of the priory of Ambialet, close to Albi, and attached to the cathedral of Montpellier. A hiking trail, coming from Rabastens and Couffouleux, passes by Loupiac and joined Saint-Gery while crossing the Tarn on the bridge of the railroad builds in 1863.

The vast plain of Couffouleux, on left bank of the Tarn, is occupied as of Antiquity by several Gallo-Roman villas. In 1381, the plain of Couffouleux sees being held a bloody battle between the Lorry drivers who plundered the Albigensian and the troops of Gaston Fébus, count de Foix-Béarn, leaving more than 2700 dead. From XVe century, the development of the port on the Tarn, vis-a-vis Rabastens, gives rise to a hamlet. This one grows quickly at the XIXe century with the construction of a suspension bridge connecting two banks in 1836 and especially with the startup of the station of railroad inaugurated in 1864.