Toulouse

In the past, I had driven past Toulouse on my many trips between Bologna, La Rochelle and the UK. I had always associated it with Airbus and hence had the idea that Toulouse was a modern city. We have now found that this is not quite the case. It is, in fact a gloriously historic city with all kinds of fascinating architecture.

  

We stayed in the B&B “Les Douves” (The Moat) in the tiny town of Saint Thomas, 40 kms west of Toulouse. It was so small that it didn’t even have a bar. But, it did happen to have its annual folk festival underway for a couple of evenings. It was rather fun to join in with the locals at the communal trestle tables sharing barbequed saucisson and rough red. I had the impression the one or two of them had never ventured as far as the big city of Toulouse.

We dined out in the local town of L’Isle-Jourdain. On one evening the dinner was interesting and ordinary and the other it was interesting an excellent. The town had a much needed coin laundrette and also an impressive covered market which had been converted into a somewhat eclectic museum of church bells.

Toulouse itself has an abundance of ecclesiastical and secular architectural marvels. For us, the most impressive museum was the 14^th century Augustine monastery which was converted at the same time as the Louvre in 1793.

Our favourite piece of church architecture would have been the Jacobins Church, if only for the magnificent towering kaleidoscopic stained glass windows.

No visit to this area would be complete without a wander along the mythical Canal de Midi. One day, we will hire a barge for a trip along here. One day.

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