Sunday 15th October 2023

Freiburg to Toulouse

Up a little late, despite being woken by the Sunday church bells a few hours earlier.

We popped out of hotel to head to breakfast room around the corner and there was not a soul around.

Gave the champagne breakfast a miss and had a healthy start to a day on which we would see very little except from the window of buses, trams, trains and planes as we transitioned from Freiburg via Strasbourg to Toulouse.

At least the rain had disappeared and we walked around town in 9 degree temperatures, with the only people out being those at church or on organised City Tours , with the funny hat brigade. Despite all of the rain the canals remained water free.

Headed to station for 12 o’clock bus and we were soon on board for the 90 minute ride to Strasbourg. Lots of traffic and lots of cropping along both sides of road , with distant views of mountains. A few vineyards were pushed up against some very lsrge processing plants, but generally grapes have disappeared.

Arrived on time in Strasbourg , it was amazing that from about 15 Kms out of town the spire of the Gothic Cathedral could be spotted.

We mastered both the tram and train terminals to get ourselves out to the airport, here in a city which is home to the European Government.

It’s hard to imagine 900 delegates arriving at the airport which is somewhere between the size of Darwin and Canberra and only seems to have the cheap airlines fly in. There were 6 check in gates and 2 lines for Customs/Security checks. There were 6 flights scheduled to fly out between 1600 and 2100, so that might illustrate its size.

We wiled away the 3 hours doing laps of the terminal and catching up on blogs. Tried to make conversation over a crowd of about 15 Spanish women, supporting a home airline, who had enough carry on luggage to fill the hold let alone overhead lockers.

Despite being in Row 1 the overhead luggage hogs had claimed the first 5 or 6. The pert little Miss next to us was far from happy and chucked a hissy fit and then sat down and grumbled without any affect on staff- shrug of the shoulders and a wry grin was all she got.

Take off was delayed a little whilst staff decided whether they should let a very drunk guy, with an open bottle of rum in his hand, come on board. After a little bit of negotiation they did and he was no problem.

A pretty smooth and uneventful flight with views over rural eastern France which looked to have experienced little recent rain.

Getting bags from lockers was s feat of international co-operation , with the exception of miss sour puss who made everybody wait whilst she readied herself to disembark.

Seems our transport hub management has improved markedly and after a while we were on a slow bus to Toulouse with signs saying ‘expect traffic delays due to Rugby World Cup’ whch was surprising given the France V Springbok game was in Paris. Must have been everybody making their way to pubs snd restaurants to watch on TV.

The 19 minute trip took more like 39, but blessed by fact that bus pulled up virtually outside our hotel.

Jane noticed a prominent duck sculpture , which turned out to be a lounging woman – another Specsavers moment.

Found hotel run by a jovial Frenchman who showed us to our elevator free first floor room, with strict instruction to limit use of air con. We nodded in agreement until finding out none of the windows opened.

Unpacked and headed out for a beer and burger dinner before watching the rugby in one of many venues with people hanging out the doors and cheering loudly at every positive French play.

I now have a favourite rugby play-#2 for the French unlike most players with that number he actually has a neck and runs like the wind.

Headed home at half time to watch second half on TV, cheering loudly for the French, only to be disappointed by the result and the over zealous refereeing by Kiwi whistleblower.