Today Bonnie and Marge flew home at a very early hour.
Michael wanted to sleep in, our flight on to Brussels is not until 5pm today.
So I decided to walk around a bit and see more of Toulouse.
All the locals seemed to be heading towards the big church, Sainte Sernin, and they were dressed down which made me guess it was a flea market. I was right, the market is huge and stretches all the way around the church. A lot of new crap and typical flea market wares, but on the north side of it there were just tatty suitcases opened up with house hold junk from mostly North Africans. This serves a purpose for this group, additional income. I usually have my best luck from these searches, but not today. I walked out empty handed. , I could compare this to the flea markets around the North and East of Paris where the same thing happens. All of a sudden you will have 50-100 men dressed in traditional Arab "dishdasha" or "Thobe" (a long dress that covers the whole body with big pockets in the front). The start calling out for people to buy their crap and the next thing you know they are surrounding you and you are basically in a mosh pit trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I always feel like I should hold on to my wallet, at least my private parts, for fear of hands grabbing. But every time this has happened as fast as it starts it ends... One time in Paris the police would come in blowing whistles every time and break it up, very strange....
Anyway after the market I sat on the main square and had some lunch. We checked out about 2pm and headed out to the airport for our 1 hour flight to Brussels.
If you have not flown Brussels Air, you need to! First off, all the seats are the same, first, business or coach. This put me off, until I found out that in first (the first few rows) they guarantee that you will have open seats next to you, so on a 3-3 configuration Michael and I sat with one empty seat between us. Once seated the flight attendant kept offering booze and food the whole way, for a 1 hour flight! First class in the US is crap, they don't even feed you unless it is more than a 3 hour flight now a days. The attendants were super nice, and seriously, 3 course meal, coursed out! Wine with each course, Cognac and coffee at the end. All this for a 1 hour flight!
We got into Brussels found our hotel and settled in.
So today we left our house in Provence and headed into Toulouse for the weekend. We had all fallen asleep the night before hearing the carnival as they called out winners of games and made announcements, it was very sad to not experience it, next time...
In Toulouse we are staying at the Crowne Plaza on Place du Capitole. The hotel is centrally located and is really very nice with big bathrooms.
The drive back was uneventful, everyone slept while I drove the 200 miles! Some traffic but pretty easy all in all.
I dropped them off at the hotel as the Saturday market was just ending, and then I headed back to the airport to drop the Volvo off at Avis. All went well; the airport is only about 20 minutes from downtown, a 28 euro cab ride back, no trains...
The four of us walked out and got lunch right on the Plaza at one of the many outdoor cafes, nothing special, but nothing bad, just a nice lunch. Afterwards we walked around Toulouse looking at some of the churches and streets. The place is packed with students, very different than Bordeaux, which is much statelier. But the energy here is amazing. While we were getting up for lunch we noticed moving trucks placing chairs all over the plaza, more on this to follow… , We walked over to the big church in town, the Basilica of St. Sernin. As we walked up we noticed people very well dressed heading in. A wedding! Now I am not a fan of weddings, but we crashed it! I will have the video up in a few days, but we sat in the back and watched as the bride came in and then the start. She had the big organ playing for her march and then an opera singer belting out a tune for the mass part, sounded so crazy soundtrack-ish, almost fake, beautiful! Click Link Here After the wedding we walked some more streets, Marge was interested in picking up a CD of Charles Trenet, an Olde Time French singer I turned her on to. I love his music! After a short rest we headed off to dinner at a place on Place Wilson, Le Bon Vivre. Great place for a taste of the Southwest of France, we had a great dinner with lots of fun. We did try Floc de Gascone blanc, a local aperitif, too sweet for us all. Click Link Here After dinner we walked back to the hotel, when we got to our square we noticed all the chairs that were delivered earlier were set up like living room furniture, hundreds of old tatty lounge chairs, leather chairs, kitchen chairs, etc. Students were sitting in them reading poetry, playing guitar, break dancing, stilt walking, banjo playing, etc, etc… too long to list them all. We sat and watched a few groups including one group that was doing interpretive dance ala Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face.
Today I got up pretty early and decided to head down to Apt for coffee. Apt as I have mentioned is a pretty big town about 10 minutes down the mountain from us. I must say that I have not been impressed by it, always traffic, always hot and a bit run down on the edges. Well once again I am proven wrong. Once you get out of your car and move to the center of town it is adorable. The buildings are pretty, the shady pedestrian streets, etc. I found a place, up to the bar for a coffee and pain-o and then went as fast as I could up the hill to get the group. We had been avoiding this town all week, only to find that it was in fact, very nice indeed.
We decided to come down for lunch, a walk and some shopping. Now of course we were heading down as the entire town was setting up for the yearly festival, parade, carnival rides, games, etc. Very 1950s looking set up, but the main road was shut down. Luckily I was able to find a sidewalk to drive onto and park (very French indeed).
After a short walk we found the rental manager's pick, Thym te Voila. This place is a gem! On a tiny courtyard, not heavily touristed as it is hard to find, but well worth it. Everyone agreed not to drink as that is all we have been doing, I did not however... So after I ordered a bottle of Champagne, the others well... they all fell in line with me. The food is "world fusion" which means not totally French, but with all local ingredients. I would highly recommend this place: CLICK LINK HERE FOR WEBSITE
OK so now a bit buzzed, we walk. The city is not big but it does have many curving alley like walking streets, a great church (many actually but one really nice one), and lots of shops. We started off at the Cathedral Sainte-Anne d'Apt. A gorgeous old church with a kid practicing the organ with his elderly teacher and my favorite part, a crypt way in the down in the belly. I actually was able to get Michael's mom to head down there which is a feat, she is very claustrophobic! This picture says it all, the walls were tights, the ceiling low, the stone was cold and dark. , After the crypt, I mean Cathedral, we walked the town, I bought some pottery for the house, which the area is known for. Marge and Bonnie bought napkins and linen, also anther Provencal find. , I have not mentioned this but I will say, the funniest thing I have found in this area is that no matter which town, village, city you are in they have the usual bikini clad girls on postcards that make no sense, but even more funny they have dogs on hammocks and kittens in lounge chairs. Makes no sense what so ever, and is actually more grotesque than cute... I had to take some photos of these two sets. , OK... so we dropped off Bonnie and Marge at the house so they could lay by the pool and come down from the champagne, Michael and I headed up to the town of Bonnieux. Another village over the hill from us about 6 miles. Very cute, we walked to the top of the hill to the cathedral on top to get a view. Weird but here in this part of France most smaller churches are locked up during the day, unlike the rest of France where you can get in any time of the day, there is usually someone there paid to keep it open for worship.
,,, Oh, one last thing about this village. So Michael is the only one who did not drink at lunch, I had but hours earlier and just sips... I decided to turn up an alley to park the car and almost got the Volvo stuck in this arch way! It looked like it would fit... Imagine, Michael screaming, "Mirror-MIRROR!" as his mirror was about to touch one side of the wall, while mine was busy about to touch the other! I actually made it trough without touching either, a job well done, right?
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