Photo : Fifistorien / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges
Standing on its rocky pedestal, the block of the cathedral and the town stands out against the backdrop of the nearby Pyrenees. In 72 BC Pompey made it a town. In the fourth century Christianity appeared: a first basilica was built near the chapel of Saint-Julien du Plan. It was only in the eleventh century that the village took off. Under a single roof, the "cathedral vessel" houses three churches of different periods and styles: the twelfth-century Romanesque church built by Bishop Bertrand de Goth and the Renaissance church of Bishop Jean de Mauléon.
The cloister opens to the south, three of the four galleries are Romanesque, the north one is Gothic. In the upper town, the houses crowd around the religious centre: noble dwellings, old half-timbered houses, humble medieval cottages huddled behind the ramparts, their barbican and solid entrance gates. Once the bishopric was abolished at the Revolution, the upper town fell into a drowsiness from which it would never emerge, while below, buildings spread across the plain.
