Tuesday 29th September - The Streets of Toulouse We went to the information centre to book a bus ride in the open top bus and opted for the 2.30pm tour as it only goes every 2 hours and we felt that we would have lunch too late if we opted for the 12.30pm tour. We walked the inner streets of Toulouse and were looking for a couple of gifts but had no luck as these girls are hard to buy for. We stopped at Brioche Doree for lunch and had a filled roll and...

Tuesday 29th September - Tres Belle Appartemente We have a lovely apartment here in Toulouse and we had dinner in last night. Jan cooked herself a steak and I had a chicken salad. We got up and had our breakfast and did a load of washing which we put out in the courtyard by the pool. The pool looks inviting but at 18deg it's too cold for us to swim but would have been lovely yesterday afternoon when we got home. We went into the city by Metro which doe...

Monday 28th September The Donjon du Capital This is the building that the Information Centre is housed in and was built by the magistrates in 1525 when they decided to build a new tower on the same site as the former tower and it was built to house the city's archives. The building continued to be used for this purpose until 1946 and from that time it has housed the Tourist Office. The turrets on the four corners were restored in the mid 1800s by Viollet-...

Monday 28th September - Salle Henri Martin This room features 10 paintings by Henri Martin who lived between 1860 and 1945 and his style is very close to that of the great impressionists. The most amazing of these paintings is also the biggest and is called the Dreamers, (Les Reveurs) and features Jean Jaures and others including the painter himself wandering along the river Garonne. The painting is huge and goes from floor to ceiling and takes up the en...

Monday 28th September - Salle des Illustres The basic design of this room goes back to the time of the original magistrates in 1674. However it was redesigned later in the 19th century. The room is enormous and nowadays is used for official receptions but still also hosts wedding ceremonies. I hate to think how much this would cost to hire out?? The gallery has some 15 painting that are huge. The arches in between the painting have a statue in each arch, ...