We got a late start today because of the rain, which fortunately cleared off by late morning. Since we'd driven the prior two days, we decided to keep close to home and visit Toulouse, which we had not yet seen. It was an easy 15 minute drive to the Metro station (free parking, too) and a quick 15 minute tram ride into the older part of the city. I had no expectations of the city, and was thus very pleasantly surprised by it -- it is a beautiful, bustling (but not overwhelmingly so), comfortable city, with attractive buildings and public spaces. It has a much different feel than Paris, much more southern and Mediterranean-feeling, with more reddish pastel colors and architecture that feels a little Spanish. We visited two very different, very beautiful churches, the Basilica St. Sernin, and the Eglise des Jacobins. Both were more interesting inside than most churches we've visited, and St. Sernin has a wonderfully interesting exterior also:
The streets are festive and interesting,
and the City Hall is a massive, impressive building situated on a large open plaza:
The Eglise des Jacobins has a very interesting interior, particularly the vaulted ceiling and the row of massive columns running down the center of the vast space.
Finally, since Boyd wanted a couple of pictures of me, here's one of me, taken by my son Andrew, trying to figure out where to go next.
And I close with a self-portrait of me, showing that the kids are really, really getting to me lately....
We definitely plan on visiting again, given how easy it is to get into town how pleased we were with our first visit.
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