18 - From Find - Toulouse

 Sunday, December 10, 2023 - Toulouse

The road from Carcassonne to Dax passes uses Toulouse as a connection point; so after driving one hour of my 4 hour journey home, I stopped in Toulouse to take lunch.  The engineer from AIGP I'd met with in Carcassonne (Mojito) grew up in Toulouse and told me to give him a call if I was visiting Toulouse so he could at least recommend things to me.  In this case, since he was in town, he invited me to join him and his friends for lunch at les halles; he referred to it as a food court in English.  

At les Halles de la Cartoucherie (I guess this neighborhood of Toulouse was the Cartoucherie) I saw many of the same faces as in Carcassonne plus a few new ones.  All great, warm people and a chance to talk in a casual setting.  Turns out many of them had been out partying at a night club (boite de nuit) on a canal boat (un paniche) until close to when I woke up in Carcassonne; so they were grabbing grub to recover 😆.  

I had another cassoulet, though this one wasn't nearly as good as the previous day's; and I had a few oysters because others were having them too.  I'd tried ordering bulots (sea snails) but the place had already sold out (the sign was marked "victim of its own success").  What was interesting at this place was that all the places gave out plates, dishes, trays, utensils, and glasses and then people bussed their own dishes to a couple centralized stations.  

All sorts of stuff was in the halles, food stalls, a DJ, a yoga studio

Even racquet sport courts

After food, Mojito took me into the centreville of Toulouse.  He said it's a relatively compact city: the centreville can be walked across in like 20 minutes and while there might not be a whole lot to see, the beauty of the city is in how comfortable and relaxed the atmosphere is such that the people can enjoy long meals and celebrate rugby victories.  

Part of the Toulouse "skyline", l'hôpital la grave.  

The Garronne river passes through Toulouse as well as Bordeaux

During the walk, one of Mojito's friends was on the phone with the train company, SNCF.  They had canceled his car (not the whole train apparently, just his car on the train) for the night ride back to Paris and he had to spend 30 minutes with customer service to get booked on another train back.  It's weird that for how disjointed I think of American passenger rail and expect French passenger rail to be better (despite me having rarely used American passenger rail), the French have a fairly poor opinion of the SNCF.  Maybe its a grass is greener thing... 

Dax has the most rugby titles in France; each title kicks off several days of celebrating.  The rugby team starts at this bar, Chez Tonton, and works their way around town via the tourist train.  The trophy, a giant wooden plaque, takes quite a beating in the festivities and is sometimes left in the streets by the inebriated team - to be picked up later haha

I'm told that the owner of Chez Tonton owns like 5 other major bars in the area too, she's practically on her way to being the patron saint of the city.

Before visiting the main plaza, Mojito had us walk to the city's basilica, another skyline item.  Along the way, he pointed out that most street signs were in French and Occitane, a nearly forgotten provincial language.  

From what I'm told, Toulouse was called the pink city.  Back in the day, building in brick was a way to demonstrate wealth, and while Toulouse didn't have a ton of money back then they were able to paint many buildings like brick.  What I saw in the centreville looked like a lot of brick buildings, so I'm not exactly sure what to make that story.  

Christmas markets were in full swing in Toulouse.  The one in the Place du Capitale was absolutely noir du monde (~packed to the gills), so I didn't attempt to enter.  Fortunately, there were like 3 other markets happening around and I was able to squeeze through one.  

This Christmas tree is a steel frame filled with many small trees grown for Christmas; unlike other big cities, this eco-friendly choice was made to avoid cutting down a big 80 year old tree.

After spending a very pleasant afternoon wandering Toulouse, I had to return to my 3 hour drive back to Dax.  I'd say Toulouse seems like a great city to live in; maybe not the most exciting tourist destination based on my very brief visit, but the city is vibrant and located only 2 hours from many different activities (mountains, sea, ocean, etc.)  

I stopped 2 hours into the drive for dinner at a chain called Leon's, which specialized in mussels.  I opted for mussels with roquefort cheese; the cheese partially melted and enriched the broth at the base of the pot yum!  

The last part of the drive went smoothly, though I did slow down to allow some wild boars (les sangliers) to get out of the road.  I was absolutely exhausted when I made it back to the apartment in Dax, but was pleased with my weekend.  I did more walking than I'd thought and was surprised to find my legs sore, though being cooped up in my car for hours probably had something to do with that too.  Anyhow, a great way to conclude my 4th weekend in France.