Toulouse

 12 June

It had been raining on and off all morning.  We met Jude at the Toulouse train station and walked the 20 minutes to our apartment, which is quite large but divided up in an interesting way!!  Our bike tour guide contacted us to say he was going to cancel our tour, as it was predicted to rain again and he had done a tour the day before where there was lightening and he was very concerned.  We wanted to go ahead but agreed to reschedule for the following afternoon.  After our food tour!!  It will be challenging!  We were starving and Jude found a restaurant around the corner - Cote Garonne.  They agreed to squeeze us in - they had limited tables as they couldn't  use the outside ones because of the impending rain.  Well I was delighted with my choice - grilled fish with risotto and delicious vegetables, followed by the apple pie with salted caramel icecream... wow.  It was excellent.  And the entire meal was 24 euro.  Plus two glasses of very pleasant rose! After our delicious lunch we needed to walk, so wandered along the river to the Tourist Bureau.  The buildings here are all made from brick - there is no local stone to quarry - so it has a different look to other French cities, but is none the less impressive.  We thought it might be fun to do the little train trip but actually it wasn't that good - we could barely hear the English narration, the French was playing so loudly, and it was quite warm (both Jude and I nodded off a little at times) and you couldn't really see that well... hopefully the bike tour will be a lot better!  Greg was determined to use his paper map to navigate home again but he and Jude had some discussion about which direction to head off in... eventuallly he started using google maps and led us round and round in circles, which was highly amusing but also annoying... it was a relief to finally chose a direction and head off!!  Once we were in the right direction he was able to use his paper map which made him very happy, navigating the good old fashioned way!

Greg had spied this restaurant claiming to have the best cassoulet (from 195?) so walked down there to make a booking.  It was a bit disappointing.  Very touristy, and the food was no where near the fabulous lunch we'd enjoyed. Jude and I had the goat's cheese salad, which would have been OK except half my lettuce was soggy, bruised and limp (Jude's was better!) - I pointed it out but they couldn't care less.  We also had a less then enjoyable gin and tonic - just a cube of ice and a splash of tonic.  We asked for more tonic, not realising they charged 5.50 euro per tiny bottle of tonic on top of the 8.50 euro for the gin!!  A rip off!  The wine was OK thankfully!  As we were eating the promised rain started.  And it was a huge thunderstorm.  A guy sitting outside came rushing in with his dog, who promptly went to Greg's side and was rewarded with the cassoulet he had not finished (it was OK, but a large amount).  She was a quite cute for a dog.  We decided we'd take the metro back to avoid the rain.  The metro was right across the road.  It was only three stops to Parliament square.  On the steep escalator heading up from the metro Greg playfully pushed into me from behind.  I pushed back with my bottom.  He didn't expect it and moved backwards, I lost my balance and fell down -as did Greg, and in collatoral damage, Jude, but not as dramatically as me, I ended up with my head facing towards the ground and I had no idea how I would get up.  Luckily two young men kindly gave us both a hand as the escalator reached the top.  We were both bruised and battered, it wasn't a fun experience!

13 June

The day started with us trying to call our bike tour guide as arranged at 9am to see if the tour was going ahead that afternoon.  My weather app said it was raining all afternoon, Jude's said not until the evening... however it made no difference in the end as he had already decided to cancel, with the risk of thunder storms.  We met our guide Jeremie in the main square, and the other participant in the tour, Joanne from Sydney.  How lovely to have a small group!  Jeremie is a sommelier in a 2 Michelin star restaurant and only does food tours once a week.  He was certainly very knowledgeable about wine!  Our first stop was Comtess du Barry, a store that makes fine foie gras and other goodies.  The foie gras was served to us in two ways: between a spiced bread and on a cracker wrapped in ham.  Both were delicious.  We also had wine (at 10.15 in the morning!  But hey, we are on holidays!), dried fruit soaked in armanac and marzipan sweet treats.  It was lovely and Jude, Greg & I bought a tin of the foie gras to take home!  Next we wandered through the streets to the Victor Hugo market.  Not officially on the tour, but Jeremie wanted to show us through (briefly).  Our next stop was a wine shop (a Nicholas shop, Davide our Paris food guide would have been horrified, he distained the "commonness"of the Nicholas chain!  However we had two very nice wines, a white and a red, served by a very pleasant and knowledgeable manager, along with some olive tapenade on bread.  Our main course was cassoulet.  This was served at a tiny little restaurant off  the main drag, but a lovely man who is very passionate about his cassoulet!  While it was being prepared he served us some of his famous mashed potato with cheese, which we had to wind up like pasta, and it was wonderful!  We had some wine with our (very filling!) lunch.  Greg ate my sausage but  I did eat the duck and most of the beans.  Jeremie then said he could take us to a run of the mill sweet shop or to a specialist chocolatier - of course we chose the chocolatier, and again he was a delightful man who was passionate about his home made chocolates and fudge.  He's won awards for his fudge and when we ate it we could see why!  It was amazing, the best fudge I have ever had.  Jude asked how a small shop like this went selling expensive hand made products.  Both the chocolatier and Jeremie were surprised at this: in France, they said, while you will budget on some things, if you are invited to someone's home you will always bring expensive chocolates and wine!  So most of the chocolates are sold as gifts!  He was such a nice man I had to buy some fudge and chocolate.  Just to contribute to the local economy, of course!

After lunch we really needed to do some walking!!  We were so full!  We wanted to see inside the Capital building but the police outside told us it was closed until 1.30pm.  I really wanted to see the cathedral so we walked over there - it was well worth it, it is a beautiful building.  Greg was in need of a nap so he headed back to the apartment while Jude and I went into the Capital.  It was refurbished (we assumed after being ransacked during the revolution, although that was not said!) and had some lovely paintings on the walls and ceiling.  Almost all with lovely naked nymphs who clearly never felt the cold, unlike the fully clothed men posing with them.  Women are made of tougher stuff obviously!  Jude had downloaded some suggestions on what to see in one day in Toulouse - we scrolled through the list and saw a lovely colourful square and a beautiful street, so we set off to find them.  We were nearly there when we had to find a bar and have a reviving aperol.  It was quite warm (and still no sign of the promised rain, lugging our umbrellas with us did the trick!).  We went into the church we'd seen earlier (on the food tour) which has seen better days - I don't know if any plans are in the works to upgrade it, all the posters were in French.  We found the square - it was particularly quiet so not colourful, but still charming.  The beautiful street had one house with a lovely garden (and faux lawn!) but otherwise was not too exciting. Still it was lovely to walk around the city.  And walk off a little bit of the food we had consumed!  We made it back to the apartment just after 5pm.

For our last night in Toulouse (and France, for us!), we met up with Jude's friend Elaine.  Elaine is Irish but has lived in France for a while and met Jude in Bordeaux.  She now lives in Toulouse and loves it.  We had a great meal at tLe Nez Rouge.  It poured with rain again as the sun set!  It wasn't quite as powerful as the night before (it had even made the ABC news!) but thankfully we had our umbrellas with us this time!

14 June

Jude had said she would love to eat at a Creperie, but Les is not keen on eating at one, so I suggested we have brunch at one on our last day.  We walked down to the one recommended by Jeremie but while it opened at 11.30, it didn't start serving until 12!  We googled and found one that had a good recommendations, near the centre, and walked there (dragging our luggage).  The squeaky wheels on Greg's bag started falling off!  First one, then the other - he only had two lots of wheels left!!  He didn't want to to consider buying a new suitcase and is going to find glue in San Sebastian.  The creperie was lovely.  I had the plat de jour, which was a galette  (with cheese, and roasted vegetables on a buck wheat crepe), a cup of tea, followed by a apple and  caramel sauce.  Jude had a glass of rose and I had to follow suit!  Delicious.  We walked to the train/bus station, Jude shot off back to Bordeaux, and we got onto the bus to San Sebastian.  It was dreadful.  The woman in front reclined her seat - and I didn't have enough leg room as it was.  It was a very long 5.5 hours.