Sources de Rodez

Sources de Rodez in the Aveyron department of Occitanie, France, offers bicarbonate mineral spring waters in the capital city of the Aveyron—a city dominated by the extraordinary red sandstone Gothic cathedral of Notre-Dame de Rodez, whose bell tower rises above the old town as a landmark of medieval ambition, and now also by the Museum Soulages—the world's largest museum dedicated to a single artist, Pierre Soulages, the Rodez-born abstract painter whose celebration of the color 'outrenoir' (beyond black) and light reflection has made him the most internationally recognized living French artist of his generation. The bicarbonate mineral character of the spring reflects the geological diversity of the Aveyron massif, where ancient Hercynian basement rocks and sedimentary formations create a mineralogically rich landscape that also produces the exceptional Laguiole cheese and the Roquefort blue cheese aged in the Combalou caves nearby. The Soulages museum, the Gothic cathedral, and the mineral spring tradition create a Rodez visit of exceptional cultural and geological richness.