Toulouse! (Première Partie)

Le Capitole

On Saturday, I went to Toulouse! Toulouse is a two to two-and-a-half hour train ride from Bordeaux and the center of the fifth-largest metropolitan area in France. Its nickname is "la ville rose" (the pink city) because there are so many brick buildings there. I went with three of my friends from EAP. We sort of looked up where to go on Wikipedia before hand, but we didn't get an actual map until we arrived at the train station. Then we just decided where to go next as we went along. Luckily, all the main sights are within walking distance of each other and the train station. (It was still an insane amount of walking!)

Our train left at 7:30am, and we arrived around 10. First, we went to Le Capitole, which is an 18th century building that houses city hall. The building is really pretty with all the striped bricks, but there was a market going on in the square in front of it, so we couldn't really get any pictures of the whole building.

Basilique Saint-Sernin

Next, we went to the Basilique Saint-Sernin, which featured more awesome striped bricks and a really cool bell tower. After taking in the outside, we walked around inside the church for a while too. I've probably visited a dozen churches and cathedrals since I arrived in Bordeaux, and I still can't get over how beautiful they are here! The architecture, the stained glass, the altars - everything is amazing.

Église des Jacobins

After the Basilique, we walked a few blocks to the Église des Jacobins. When we got there, the sun was hitting the stained glass windows just right so the colors reflected on the walls and lit up the whole church with a pinkish-orange light. I love the stained glass windows here! The designs are all really intricate, and the colors are really pretty. Unfortunately, it's hard to take pictures of the windows without the lighting coming out blurry or way too bright. But the Église des Jacobins had this really cool circular mirror around one of the columns that went out like 10 feet. It was really clear and let you see the ceiling and the stained glass windows without craning your neck, and it also let you take pictures with more even lighting.

Église des Jacobins (picture of the mirror!)

Garonne River and Pont Saint-Pierre

We also walked along the Garonne River a little, by the Pont Saint-Pierre. The Garonne also runs through Bordeaux, but it's a lot less muddy and brown in Toulouse. There was a path along the river on the street level, but also one down by the water which was nice.

Hôtel d'Assézat

Next, we stopped at the Hôtel d'Assézat, which was built in the 1500's. The architecture of the Hôtel d'Assézat is amazing; I loved all the columns and the details in the brickwork. Somewhat confusingly, it is not actually a hotel; "hôtel" in French can mean a commercial hotel, like in English, but the older meaning is a large private house. Today though, there's an art gallery inside, and I don't think anyone actually lives there. Anyways, we didn't go to the gallery because we were getting hungry at this point...

For lunch, we went to a small restaurant that my friend had found good reviews for on the French version of Yelp, Qype.fr. (None of us are sure of how to pronounce that.) I ordered fish, and it came with potatoes and eggplant (that dark brown lump). It was pretty good! And I ate So. Much. Bread. I must have eaten a basket's worth by myself. They kept bringing us different kinds! I couldn't resist! The bread is so good here!


 À suivre! (To be continued!)