Jenbeansblog: Toulouse Oct 19, 2012

My coworker and I set off to Toulouse, the next leg of our France adventure, after the last set of talks at the Bordeaux university.

Our Toulouse hotel was situated 3 minutes quick stroll away from the Gare de Matabiau train station and was right in the heart of strip-club central (I promise I did not plan it this way!) but a nice 15-minute leisurely saunter towards the city centre.

Toulouse is known as the pink city for the many pinkish hue buildings. Something about their bricks...... it was a great time to visit since it was breast cancer awareness month :)

A great thing about France was that most of their coffee shops serve Lavazza coffee, an Italian brand of really great coffees (above photo shows cafe advertising Lavazza). This coffee is a staple at our home in Toronto and if I could attach a permanent funneling device on my head that feeds into my mouth and thus maintaining a constant stream of coffee intake wherever I go, I would. So I guess my point is, it was nice to see Lavazza in France :)

Powered with strong coffee, we went exploring: stumbled upon Musee des Augustins and lost ourselves in ancient french culture and art, the Toulouse Capitole, and the Cathedral St. Sernin.

The museum was small but packed with old relics, sculptures, and a beautiful veggie garden in the square centre. Below are some of the veggies and fruits of the garden. The tree on the left was producing very nice figs, most of them ready for harvest (squirrels are not common in Europe because they are native to the new world so seeing fruits intact on trees was new to me). I am not sure the identity of the plant in the middle, although I'm hazarding a guess: baby radishes..... On the right are some grapes still on vine, probably not enough to make into wine because the garden is very small.

We headed to the St. Sernin cathedral which is shaped as a cross with each arm with podium and pews to accomodate different congregation sizes. The church interior is very beautiful but unfortunately my photos are too horrible!

We ventured into the central part of Toulouse for some shopping and to see the Capitol. In the square, a sporting event (I think cycling) had finished and a marching band performed. It appeared people of all ages were celebrating and dancing. I caught two young men galloping the "gangnam style", and unfortunately, one of them stopped when he caught me photographing them!