Toulouse Sight Seeing – Friday, Oct 12

Amazingly (to my America-centric view of the world), Google Maps shows the current traffic in Toulouse.  So, knowing that there’s morning traffic, plus, acknowledging that we don’t tend to get out early, we decide that today we’ll eat lunch at home and then head to the big city (the 4^th largest in France).  After days of small hill towns, people.

The city streets are being torn up to put in an underground metro.  They were doing it when I was here in 2000 (seriously) and they’re still hard at work well over a decade later.  So, our poor GPS wasn’t able to give us the best route to the inner city parking lot we’d wanted which was underground at Place Capitole.  But, luckily there are several lots just outside the ring road (Blvd. Strausbourg) and we ended up in the one we’d used in 2005 when we were here for Bill’s wedding (although Maxine was amazed that I remembered this, it is a useless detail to this blog…)

Some views of the city from the top of a department store:

 

 

I got a disturbing (to Maxine) amount of energy from walking the city.  Think vibrant.  It’s a young city.  There is a ton of retail, and most of it isn’t chain.  The store fronts are often repurposed older buildings which adds to the innovation vibe.  It was such a contrast to the rural, small villages near our rental house.  Toulouse is noticeably more prosperous on this trip than what we'd seen in 2005 or 2006 and we're glad that their economy is recovering.

We’ve got the Michelin Guide with us and it has a walking tour of the city.

Old buildings.  Churches.  Views of the water.  Towers.  Museums.  Etc.  At one point we are staring in the window of a chocolate shop.  I’ve pretty much given up trying to get a ‘wowie’ experience from ostensibly great chocolate.  I love chocolate, but perhaps (not really) because of my years working for M&M Mars, my tastes don’t really recognize the value of higher priced chocolates.  Nonetheless, we are staring in the window.  And, Maxine noticed a poster announcing a chocolate show today and through the weekend at Place St. Georges.  It was nearby, on our walking tour, so off we went.

Best macarons of our trip to date.  We bought some from the patisserie-guy at the chocolate show twice in the space of a half hour -- my excuse being that we're on vacation and can overindulge.  Also bought a piece of great chocolate cake with what I think was a caramel center. 

From there continued our wander of the retail.  Some interesting design shops.  A store dedicated to pastel, the blue color/paint/dye that was *the* regional source of revenue a few hundred years ago.  A lingerie shop I’d visited in 2000.  And a scarf shop we’d been to.  It was fun to feel familiar with the city.

 Then to our evening’s restaurant called La Bonne Auberge, in a suburb of Toulouse called L’Union.  Maxine researched restaurants and found this one listed both in Michelin (for good value) and Tripadvisor.  It was on our way home from Toulouse so we decided to try it.  La Bonne Auberge turned out to be a casual, locals’ restaurant which filled up with families and local couples.  We’re glad we booked in advance because they were turning people without reservations away at the door.  As usual, there was a 3-course dinner which offered a substantial discount over the a la carte menu. 

As is typical, the meal lasts two and a half hours, which to our LA way of thinking is a huge amount of time.  Maxine has a salad with scallops as her plat, canette (young duck) as her entree, and frozen nougat as dessert.  It was very good but the thing we really remember about the restaurant was the gracious service and great attitude of the people who worked there.  They really seemed to want us to enjoy our meal.  BTW, this has been our experience most of the time here in Southern France – very different from the stereotypes most Americans have of the French.  And it was great to get lots of little amuse-bouches (extra tastes), in this case appetizers, a small soup and extra dessert.

With a 45 minute drive back to Broze (really, not bad at all), we were home just after midnight.