A Road Trip in Southwestern France (part 1)
Thanks for joining me on my Southwestern France road trip! it began on June 8 and I’m in my second week. But first, I’d like to give you a few highlights and lessons learned in week one. Then in my next post, I’ll share highlights of the second week. This is an overview, with more details to come later.
I arrived the following day in Paris, expecting lots of delays due to the new E/ES system, during which a passenger’s photo and fingerprints are taken instead of stamping the passport. For whatever reason, this didn’t happen, and security and passport control occurred normally, with no major delays.
That was a relief! What was not a relief was getting to another terminal to meet my friend and take the next flight to Toulouse. We were to take the Air France flight to Toulouse (much faster than the train.I’ll definitely revise this in my Hit the Road book!). It took a long time to find the way to the F terminal for Air France due to poor signage and lack of sleep!
We finally connected and took an easy flight to Toulouse. We decided to take the airport shuttle bus into town instead of a taxi. It’s cheaper and a better learning experience! The bus costs 9 euros and took us into the city quickly. The tricky part was getting on the correct bus. Go to Ground floor Gate C2. Make sure you are not taking either a HOTEL shuttle or a CITY bus, but the airport shuttle into the center of town. Look for the Tisseo (public transportation for Toulouse) network and make sure you’re on the right bus. (The T2 Tram is currently out of service. There should be a new one in the future.) The shuttle bus is the best way to get to town. You can get a ticket at a kiosk right there in the bus area.
14th-century building now a restaurant
Highlights of Toulouse: It’s an energetic city filled with college-age people everywhere! Of course. It’s a college town! But the city stays lively every evening, even during the week. There’s a fun network of pedestrian streets (filled with students bicycling here and there) and lots of “student food” options as well as higher end restaurants. I thought the Canal du Midi would be bigger than it was. More like a creek in some places, but beautiful nonetheless.
The Hotel de Ville, or city hall, has a beautiful section called the Salle des Illustres, with paintings from various points in Toulouse history. It’s worth stopping in for this free and impressive exhibit. Food specialties include Cassoulet (duck and bean stew, a specialty of the whole southwest) and Toulouse sausage, almost like bratwurst but milder.
We picked up our rental car and headed onward to Carcassonne… This town has two parts. First, the medieval cite, which is the one everything thinks of. It’s a medieval town surrounded by a wall, complete with turrets and ramparts. You can visit the chateau, which also enables you to walk on the ramparts. Otherwise, enjoy the old town atmosphere inside. We ate in a building that dates to the 14th century. That’s a first for me! Speaking of restaurants, if you visit one day, don’t settle on the first restaurants you see. It’s small, so you can stroll around in a large loop then decide where to eat.
The Medieval Cite is connected by a bridge to the more modern city, Le Bastide Saint-Louis., where most people live and work. Both are interesting, lively and a different flavor from one another. You can easily visit both in one day or one and a half.
The Medieval fortress is double-walled and has 52 towers. Even if you don’t visit the Chateau, you can get good views from one of the two entrances, Porte Aude. That’s where you’ll go if you want to hike down the hill and across the Aude River to visit the Bastide. Or vice versa, if you are staying in the Bastide.
Overall so far, I find that southwestern France is not overrun by foreign tourists. We have gone to some beach resort areas, which are more crowded, as you’d think, but not overwhelming.
More on the first and second weeks coming up. Stay tuned! Next stops: Narbonne and Perpignan, then onward to Collioure!.
There’s more to see in the southwest than you’d think!
