Toulouse goes on holiday!

Well folks the cherry picking season has long passed. Now we are enjoying the locally grown apricots!! Still we've been spending the summer trying to keep to the good life, what with baking bread and nipping down to the market to buy saucisson, all manor of flavours available, including 'Ass', we tend to be rather conventional and stick to Wild Boar!
These saucissons were for sale in the street market of Lavaur, which we visited recently. It's not far from Toulouse and was worth the visit for the lovely little cafe we found in one of the town's old streets. Lavaur is a key town in the history of Catharism. When the city was taken by the crusaders the wife of the town's Lord was thrown in the well and pelted to death!!!! Her brother and 100 Knights were put to the sword as well as some 400 cathars who were burned at the stake. Not long after the towns first cathedral was built. It towers over the river that winds through way below. How ever in the lovely sunshine and with the company of Olivier and Tim we found a good place to eat, opposite this rather old house needing a little bit of help.......

Lunch is a slow business in France, but who wants to rush??? We poured a few glasses of wine from our pitcher before heading on to Albi, the principal town of the Tarn. This is a lovely town set on the wide Tarn river. It's full of great places to drink.......wine........and watch the world go by, it has a really relaxed feel! It's also famous for being the home of famous painter Toulouse Lautrec. You can wander around the garden of the palace where the museum holds the biggest collection of his famous paintings and posters that he painted while being seduced by the Parisian nightlife. There is a great view of the river from here. The medieval quarter is really well preserved, full of cobbled streets.















We have been mooching about in Toulouse a fair bit too. It's really quiet in the city at the moment. All the students have gone home and lot's of business places either are open for less hours or close completly for most of August!!! Our local newsagant has closed up for a couple of weeks. Many places have signs on the door saying they will be back after a well deserved holiday!!! No wonder there are no people to give English lessons too!! Still having no work has given me time to do a bit of exploring and shopping in the end of summer sales! (The photo above shows the street where some of the wedding guests will be staying!!!!) Toulouse centre is a maze of narrow streets, when I first arrived here it was really easy to get lost, though they are great for escaping the heat! Every set of streets as it's own square or 'place' full of cafés. Often with a relaxing fountain as a focal point. They are always good places to take a rest from walking around. Though the prices vary. Place du Capitole is the most pricey being the central point of the city, though it's quite impressive. ( it's the historical seat of the cities government) The smaller and more hidden the 'Place' the cheaper the coffee!!!!!
This is Place St Georges, it gets really busy here and has a great atmosphere. There are often people dotted about playing music. Many of the Places also have markets. Some selling food produce and a few others selling antiques or bric-a-brac. ( called marché des puces or flea markets) Right is a photo taken in Place St Etienne where the citie's best antique shops can be found! It's also home of the citie's cathedral. Toulouse has some HUGE churches. They are really imposing and the spires can be seen any time the streets open out. The style is very different to the English church. I often think the long churches like St Sernin look like huge boats sailing through the city. The church Notré-Dame de la Daurade houses a black madonna, said to heal those who sit with her, it was converted from a pagan temple in the fifth century. (left is a picture of St Etienne.)
If you want to chill out away from the crowds it's a good idea to cross the river towards Les Abattoirs, where there is now an impressive art gallery. You can sit on the banks of the river looking back across into the old city. The abbatoirs and all other 'unclean' professions were kept to this side of the river in medieval times. This also included the cities hospitals!!! These hospitals developed from the hospices which took care of pilgrims on the way to the Holy Land or Santiago. They eventually cared for the sick of the city too.
As well as taking a walk along the banks of the Garonne you can stroll along the tow paths of one of the canals that link to it. Some of the barges on them are huge!! I think it would be rather nice to live on one!!!! (How ever at the moment Oli and I are just happy going out for morning power walks to get the energy and fat cells moving!!!) The canal de Midi which runs through the city links the Atlantic ocean to the Mediterrenean. It's nice to use them to walk into town too. We were recently spending en evening drinking at a bar which overlooks the river. Across the sky we could see terrific lightening, after several weeks of a crazily hot heat wave (temperatures of 39 and not dropping at all at night!!) I was really hoping it would break and rain. We hadn't had rain for weeks........seemed like a lifetime ago!!! How ever walking home got a bit scarey as lightening flashed overhead and rumbles of thunder cracked just above us. One by one huge thunder spots of rain began to fall. What bliss!!!!!! No hiding in the doorways for us. It was heaven to feel the rain on our skin and like fools we walked through one of the heaviest rain storms I have been in for a long long time!!!!!!
The best way to cool off and get fit is to go up into the Pyrenees and do a bit of treking. I was recently at Bagners-de-Lauchon where I reached the height of 2403 at the top of Pic de Cécire , not the highest I have done but the hike was really rewarding. Further down the slopes where grassy meadows can be found were carpets of vividly coloured flowers some of them very rare! We also saw plenty of Lizards and birds of prey as well as fat, curious little marmots, better known as ground hogs!!!Joël has recently got his mountain guide qualifications and was able to take us off trail. This was great as until we reached the top we didn't see a single soul!!! The only sound being the occasional bird call. The trek took about 5 hours, I guess, including a nice pic-nic on route! The view from the top was a little cloudy but I managed to get some great veiws of the higher peaks above and across the border into Spain.
Lauchon is a great place for summer treking, you can join up on the G10 which is a trail running along the Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Med.
There is also the same route on the Spanish side! In winter you can come here skiiing. It's not far from Toulouse, so maybe we shall come in the winter. The town is also famous for it's thermal springs and baths....a lovely way to ease those aching muscles!!!! I stupidly got a little sunburnt, despite using SPF 25!! I think as the air is thinner in the mountains next time I should use SPF50!! One benefit of the lighter air though is that the colours of all the flowers are gloriously bright! Anyway, so now I am trying to stay out of the sun a bit, I don't want any nasty peeling patches at the wedding. If we do make it to the beaches on the Med before hand I might have to hire a parasol!!!!!

Talking of weddings, last week we took a tour of the countryside just to the South of Toulouse to pick up our rings! We passed through some lovely hilly countryside and the Plantaurel Mountains. We stopped at the town of Le Mas-d'Azil to buy some bread and cheese and walked up to the dolmens for a picnic under a lovely oak tree. Leaving the town a short time after we went through a massive drive through cave!!!!! It really was impressive, 50m high and several metres long This cave was once home to the giant bears that lived in the region as well as our pehistoric ancestors who painted the walls with images and then later early christains, Cathars and Huguenots. You can explore the cave further by foot to see the wall paintings. A river runs parallel to the road, and they both wind through. It was wierd driving through it, I imagine this would be really cool on a motorbike!!!Here are afew photo's from the day....we really love our rings.....can't stop looking at them!!!!! I guess the next blog page will be photo's from the wedding day.......bye bye for now!