Photo : Alain Meier / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Musée de la Mine
The département's Musée-Mine is at Cagnac-les-Mines, in the Tarn, a few kilometres from Albi, on the site of a former coal mine. Run by the Tarn département, it reopened to the public after about two years of renovation work.
The renovation brought a new reception area, a shop, a redesigned visitor route and refurbished galleries. Wearing helmets, visitors go down in a mine cage to recreated galleries of about 300 to 350 metres, where sound, light and atmospheric effects reveal the miners' work.
The museum also traces the history of coal in the region over several centuries, and the social history of the working-class world, in which Jean Jaurès plays an important part. It suits families, those curious about industrial history and school groups. Opening periods vary with the seasons.
