Taxi Toulouse → Figeac

Figeac is a town of art and history nestled in the Cele valley, in the heart of the Lot department. Birthplace of Jean-Francois Champollion, the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphics, it houses a fascinating museum dedicated to the world's writing systems, installed in the scholar's birth house. The Place des Ecritures, with its giant reproduction of the Rosetta Stone engraved in the ground, is a unique site in the world. Figeac's medieval centre is remarkably preserved: 13th and 14th century townhouses with their soleilhos (open attics typical of the Quercy), narrow lanes lined with half-timbered and cantilevered houses, arcaded squares. The Church of Saint-Sauveur, a former Benedictine abbey founded in the 9th century, testifies to Figeac's role as a major stop on the Way of Saint James (via Podiensis, from Le Puy-en-Velay). The Cele river, a tributary of the Lot, meanders at the foot of the town in a setting of limestone cliffs. The Saturday morning markets, under the covered hall, are a concentrate of Quercy gastronomy: Perigord walnuts, Rocamadour cheese, foie gras, black truffle in season, Cahors wine. Figeac is also an important aerospace industrial hub (Ratier-Figeac, a Collins Aerospace subsidiary), generating a regular flow of business travellers from Toulouse.