Wandering around Toulouse

Toulouse is sometimes known as la ville rose because so much of it is built in red brick. It is a very lovely and vibrant city, with many diverse and distinct neighbourhoods. We are staying within sight of the Marché Victor Hugo, a huge market that is open every day (except Monday) until 1:30pm. So, it is only a short walk to pick up whatever victuals we might need for the day. Our favourite boulangerie is about a 10 minute walk on Place du Belfort, while we just go around the corner for morning noisette and pain aux raisins at the Dame Brioche.

Since we have no specific plans while in Toulouse, we spend a great deal of time just walking around. And, it's a great city to do that. Just to the south of our hotel is huge Place du Capitol (which was taken over by roller-bladers on Friday night), and a very short walk east of that is Place Wilson, which is circular and has six streets running into it.

We lunched today (al fresco) at La Gourmandine, having a very nice tarte au jambon et oignon accompanied by une salade composée. And, because we ate out for lunch, we ate in for dinner, supplementing our usual fare with some tasty gravlax from a Norwegian stall in the market! It was very good, comparing favourably to Susan's wonderful rendition. We accompanied our in-house feast with some of the Fitou wine we had purchased on Thursday.

The great weather continues - another perfect 3.0 today.


We usually start the day at Dame Brioche


La ville rose: Pont Neuf over le Garrone


We watch the exciting Switzerland-France World Cup qualifying match (1-1)