Toulouse…

After a long train ride (with an ill behaved and loud young child in our car) from Paris, we arrived in Toulouse late afternoon on Sunday (07/18). Our primary concern was getting something to eat, settling into our hotel, and getting back on a normal sleep schedule. We went to a restaurant in the nearby Place du Capitole, and had a nice meal chatting with a woman from New Zealand about our mutual travels. Apparently, K was happy to have someone other than me to talk with at this point.

The Capitol

On Monday (07/19), we set out to explore old Toulouse, which is called “La Ville Rose” or the Pink City because of the red brick buildings throughout the city. Toulouse is the capital of the mid-Pyrenees region, and the fourth largest city in France, with a large population of college students. One of the first differences that we noticed between Northern and Southern France is the weather. It was much warmer and sunnier here than in Paris.

We bumbled through the French menus again, and we had a good lunch of crepes. I’ve noticed that there seem to be much less meat options on the menus in France compared to the U.S. That has been quite a change from our regular fare. Not necessarily a bad one either. Not too surprisingly, the other big menu difference is that wine is cheaper than soda in most cases. Again, not necessarily a bad change.

After lunch, we headed over to the city’s most famous landmark Basilique St-Sernin, which is the world’s largest Romanesque church. We continued our journey of churches with a quick stop at the Saint Pierre des Chartreux as we made our way to the Garonne River. We walked from the famous bridges of Pont Saint Pierre to Pont-Neuf along the Garonne. Time to visit another church, Saint-Etienne Cathedral. For some reason, this one really stood out to me though among all those that we have seen. K said the design was “whack,” and that was probably why I liked it. Indeed, the church was built in several stages over multiple centuries and resulted in an asymmetrical design as it is apparently “unfinished” in several sections. We finished out our afternoon tour of old Toulouse with a visit to several of the gardens in the southern part of the city, le Grand-Rond, le jardin des Plantes, and le jardin Royal, which are connected to each other by foot bridges.

Basilique St-Sernin

Pont Saint Pierre

Pont-Neuf

Saint-Etienne Cathedral

Bridge between the gardens

We got a pretty good overview of the city today, so we are going to make a day trip to the medieval town of Carcassonne tomorrow.