After Arles, the tour continued by coach, as our director called the bus.  Elodie’s French-accented vocabulary made the lumbering vehicle seem more glamorous, as it did everything else that she said.  I realize that is a cliché; nonetheless, I allowed myself to be charmed.

Toulouse had numerous fountains.  Some, like this one, were topped with Classical figures.  Others were dedicated to poets, military heroes, and prominent people associated with the city.

         Our route took us about 300 kilometers west to Toulouse.  I slept through the first part of the ride.  Outside Narbonne, the halfway point in the trip, we stopped at a winery where tasting tables were set up in a former medieval monastery.  We were given three varieties of wine to sample, as well as plates of cheeses.  It was so hot and airless, however, that the cold water set before us was all that appealed to me. 

          Toulouse lies on the Garonne, the third of the great rivers of France to which I was introduced on this tour.  The Romans mined clay for bricks in the hills around the settlement that they called Tolosa.  To this day, most of the buildings in Toulouse are made of reddish brick, giving it the sobriquet of La Ville Rose, the Pink City.

         Toulouse has a population of half a million people.  Like other riparian ports, it became a trading hub.  It remains a vital urban area, France’s fourth largest.

The Renaissance-era Donjon du Capitole was in the heart of the old quarter.  It was once a fortress, and now contains Toulouse's tourism bureau.

        
          Fortunately for the tourist, many of the mansions erected by 16th and 17th Century nobles, as well as medieval churches and towers, were concentrated in the old quarter.  We found Toulouse an excellent city for pedestrians, with modern as well as renovated streets closed to motorized traffic.  HL and I explored the neighborhood near our hotel.  We dined in one of the cafes facing a fountain in the middle of a small park, in the shade of rose-hued apartment blocks curving around us.

HL and I had our first meal in Toulouse at a café, in a plaza with a fountain honoring the French poet Pierre Goudouli.

Saint Sernin Basilica is the largest Romanesque church in France.  Begun in 1080, Saint Sernin's is the oldest and most elaborate of Toulouse’s churches.  We toured it with our group and Séraphine, the local guide.

This is just one of the photogenic sections of the Basilica.  Saint-Sernin is one of the stops along the pilgrimage route to Compostela, still followed by devout Catholics and somewhat masochistic hikers.

         Toulouse merits at least one more entry in my travelogue,  so I shall provide one soon.



       

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