Monday 16th October 2023

Toulouse Town

Pretty quiet here in Toulouse this morning compared to the festivities of last night – before the final result.

Had our first meagre French breakfast offering, which we probably needed after nearly four weeks of eating and drinking.

Today was about sightseeing in France’s fifth biggest city, with a population of Adelaide. It has a young feel about it with all of the Uni students around the place. Sadly there is also a lot of homeless people strewn around the streets.

We headed down to the Capitol building , where it’s main square was being cleaned up after a weekend expo of some sort. The building is pretty grand outside and on the inside it houses some wonderful art.

Got some sagely advice from the Toutist Information people and walked the old city for a while, where many of the old houses had been converted to high end outlets. Interestingly most closed on Monday.

Still having the occasional Oop’s with cyclists who spend a lot of time on footpaths – most are very forgiving. Lots of quaint town squares with coffee shops doing a roaring trade.

We did find one non-drinker looking a little bit disinterested in what was happening around him.

Three notable differences here than in other places we have visited, is dogs shit everywhere and it’s not picked up, men piss on more posts than dogs and rubbish bins are used less frequently.

Worked our way down to the Gascogne River which has hardly any flow when compared to the Rhine. It does have a lovely asymmetrical bridge with some unique designs to deal with strong flood flows. One area below the flood level has a huge metal flood gate to protect the houses.

There is nowhere near the boat traffic, with only one cruise boat about. On the other hand the riverside was quite busy with runners, walkers and people taking in the world. Quite a few little school kids on excursions who were more enjoying the pirate ship in the park than the scenery.

There are two notable canals that run off the river and they are not only lovely tree coveted walks, but home to canal dwellers who use the lock system to potter around the canals.

We walked about 4-5 kilometres along the canals before popping out beside the huge Airbus Head Office , which is a city in itself. Yesterday when we flew in we noticed 6 planes shaped like dolphins and Dr Google tells us they are transport planes used to move plane componentry around before final assembly.

Heaps of people flowing out of there through some lovely Chinese Gardens towards a huge area full of takeaway food. Seems as though sushi and poke bowls have taken over from Macca’s here.

We grabbed a salad for lunch, much to Jane’s chagrin. She had her eyes on a scallop risotto, but adjacent table got the last one.

Did some more wandering around town where we noticed a huge number of damaged window fronts , but were not sure if it was in response to last nights result in rugby or recent riots.

Got home and then headed to the laundromat where every customer other than us was a Uni student- bright but not street smart as they asked us how to use the coin operated equipment.

Dinner tonight was at a recommended restaurant where you knew it was going to be pricey just based on staff attire.

Jane got her scallops and me some duck, all served by the friendliest wait person on tour.

Headed home for some rest to build up for the coveted market food tour tomorrow.