Toulouse!

Two hours by train and voila!  We stepped into the old city of Toulouse. 

Wow, we were not expecting a big city.  Toulouse compares directly to Boudreaux; it is a bustling big university city filled with young people.  While Boudreaux is all about wines, Toulouse may be the cultural center of this corner of France.  While there are plazas all over the city for meeting, greeting, and resting, the Place du Capitol at the Hotel d’Ville is huge . . . even by European standards.   This tremendous pink brick, Capitole de Toulouse is home to city hall, the Theatre du Capitole de Toulouse opera company, and the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse.    Like other great plazas, it is fringed with restaurants and is a popular place for markets . . . one selling mostly books and dry goods was in process today.  Two churches stood out to us, Sainte Etienne du Toulouse and Sernin Bascillica.  St Etienne is a curious structure.  Rumored to have been built initially in the 5^th century on the site of a former 3^rd-century chapel, this Roman Catholic church was ransacked during the French Revolution.   At that point, the church was already 1300-1400 years old!  Just imagine!  Napoleon took it over and used it for storing scrap metal.  In 1852 he gave it back to the church.  The city made repairs and expanded the church using materials from two separate unfinished churches.   It has both Romanesque and Gothic architecture.  The nave is out of alignment and a column stands between the front and rear sections.  It’s quite a mess but is beautiful in its own way.

With only five or six hours to explore, we missed seeing some important elements in this great city but it was easy to feel the Spanish influence . . .  not so very French here.  The highlight for me was Pont Neuf (Nines Bridge).   A little history:  “King Francis I of France had learned not to trust Charles V of Spain. It was vital to be able to move defending armies across the Garonne quickly in any weather or season. In 1541 King Francis declared a tax levy to finance construction of a bridge, but it did not become a reality until 1561.” This sturdy, beautiful bridge still stands and is in use today.

Toulouse is nicknamed ‘La Ville Rose’ (The Pink City), for good reason.  Unlike other French towns of limestone or river rock and mortar, the red brick buildings here create an aura of pink.   Just only about 60 miles from the Spanish border, the vibe here is Spanish, young, and laid-back.  The French place deep value on education.  All decent size cities n France have affordable access to higher education campuses , even to international students!!!.  Among the 27 universities here, the University de Toulouse is one of the largest in France. 

At lunchtime, we had the best conversations with a couple from Barcelona. The tall handsome man’s family was originally from Costa Rica and his beautiful wife was from Venezuela. Their vibrant, frisky baby boy is learning English, Spanish and French. We talked about travel, Covid, work today in office or at home, the cultural differences between Spain and France. and their dream of visiting many places in the USA. They told us the heartbreaking history of Venezuela. In 1970, Venezuela was the 4th richest country in the world, but look what happened. Let us learn. These meetings are priceless.