Toulouse

I'll state from the beginning that I will not do this city justice. We didn't really spend much time there, just a bit of a walk around one morning. Then we continued on our way.

Fog over the Garonne river in central Toulouse.

The fog was still in the process of lifting out of the Garonne river valley when we got there and it gave the city an other-worldly feeling. Toulouse is France's fourth largest city, home to over 400,000 Toulousains. The metropolitan area contains almost a million people.

The morning rush hour winds down.

The city is known as la ville rose because its buildings, at least in the central part of town, are constructed mostly of red bricks made from the river valley's clay soils.

Central Toulouse.

Toulouse is a city that I would like to know better. It's the home of Airbus Industrie (now Airbus S.A.S), the aircraft manufacturer. According to Wikipedia, about half the world's commercial airline fleet is made by Airbus.

I'm not sure which church this is... it may be St.-Sernin.

Toulouse is also where the late Claude Nougaro grew up. Nougaro was a successful singer/songwriter from the 1960s until his death in 2004. His songs, among them Le Jazz et le Java, Tu Verras, and of course, Toulouse, are standards of French pop music.

The tower of the Basilique St.-Sernin (above and below) is quite a landmark in central Toulouse.

The city has a long and rich history that I won't attempt to summarize here. We wandered around the small streets in the center of town, saw the Place du Capitole and the Basilique St.-Sernin. By the time we were ready to leave, the sun had come out and turned the buildings' pink tones to deep red.

From Toulouse we headed north toward Cahors and on to Bergerac for the night.