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Wise Pilgrim APPMoissac is worth a full stop, and not just for the rest. The Abbaye Saint-Pierre contains two of the greatest works of Romanesque art in existence, and if you visit only one church interior on the entire Via Podiensis, make it this one.
The tympanum above the south portal, carved around 1110 to 1130, depicts Christ in Majesty surrounded by the symbols of the four Evangelists, two seraphim, and the 24 Elders of the Apocalypse. Each elder turns toward Christ with a slightly different posture, and the whole composition has a rhythmic, almost musical quality. Art historians consider it one of the masterpieces of medieval European sculpture.
The cloister, completed in 1100, is the oldest surviving Romanesque cloister in the world. Its 76 sculpted capitals depict scenes from the Old and New Testaments and the lives of the saints, carved with an expressiveness and narrative skill that you don't expect from 900-year-old stone. The corner pillars bear marble reliefs of the apostles. UNESCO inscribed both the tympanum and cloister as World Heritage sites.
Beyond the abbey, Moissac is a working town on the Tarn river near its confluence with the Garonne. The Canal Lateral a la Garonne passes through, and a canal bridge carries it over the Tarn. The town has suffered from devastating floods, most recently in 1930, which explains some of the functional 20th-century architecture.
Full services: supermarkets, banks, pharmacies, post office, tourist office, train station with connections to Toulouse and Bordeaux. Wide range of accommodation. The market is on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Moissac is also famous for its Chasselas grapes, a table grape with AOC status.
The abbey was founded in the 7th century, though the buildings you see today are primarily 11th and 12th century. In 1047, the abbey was affiliated with Cluny, beginning a period of prosperity that produced the cloister and the great tympanum. At its peak, the abbey controlled over 100 dependent priories across southern France.
The town suffered terribly during the Albigensian Crusade, when Simon de Montfort's forces sacked it in 1212. Further damage came during the Hundred Years' War and the Wars of Religion. In 1793, revolutionaries destroyed many of the abbey's statues and furnishings, though the cloister and tympanum survived.
In the 19th century, the cloister narrowly escaped demolition when a railway line was planned to cut directly through it. Public outcry and the intervention of preservation advocates saved it. The abbey was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1998 as part of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France.
From Moissac the path follows the Canal Lateral a la Garonne westward, then crosses the Garonne into the Gers department. This is the transition into Gascony: the landscape opens into rolling green hills, sunflower fields, and the beginning of Armagnac country.
