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…
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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.
