Travelog for: FoxForce

Hello everyone!!!
Here I am! still in France...but this time, in south west of France : in Toulouse (about 824 km from Paris).

Here is the first picture of my arrival to Mood's ToyVoyagers's Hostel. I was welcomed by Alpina (charming white cat from Germany) and Stripy (french fashion student).
If you look on the left, you can also see Romeo's nose (caretaker of the hostel)

I was a bit surprised by Romeo's professionnalism as a caretaker : he examined me from every angle !!!  That tickled, I couldn't stop laughing !!!

Then Alpina and Stripy asked me many questions : where am I coming from, did I ever traveled? where? etc.. etc ...
They were very excited (while I was a bit tired from my travel from Mikkeli). Imagine when I told them about my trip to Machu Pichu !!!! Stripy even took a globe so that I show them where Peru was situated...

Today, and after a good sleepy night, we went for a walk along the "Canal du Midi".
Bertold, our bilingual tour guide, (you can see him between Alpina and I) told us about this Canal : it was built by Pierre-Paul Riquet under the reign of king Louis XIVth, and it is certainly the most incredible man made achievements of those times. It is today classified as a World Heritage site by the UNESCO.
There are many barges that sail on the Canal as you can see behind us.

Bertold is a very serious tour guide ... He was inexhaustible about this Canal, and didn't stop speaking .. The original purpose of the Canal du Midi was to be a shortcut between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, avoiding the long sea voyage around hostile Spain, Barbary pirates, and a trip that in the 17th century required a full month of sailing.

Bertold couldn't stop speaking : The Canal has 103 locks which serve to climb and descend a total of 190 meters. The Canal has 328 structures, including not only the locks but also bridges, dams and a tunnel.

Alpina and I began to get bored ... Fortunately, even if Bertold is a very hard-working bilingual tour guide, he also have a stomach!!! and after a two hours walking conference, it was time to have something to eat!

Of course, we only ate regional products, such as tomatoes as you can see on the picture, but also, slice of bread of Foie Gras (some kind of pâté) ...
Then it was time to leave, Bertold was very proud of this walking, so he was anxious to immortalise this moment in front of a lock gate.
(His poor quality camera took this picture...)

Today, Mood told us we should soon meet Dottie Grace, an australian giraffe !! Sébastien (the big blue one on the left) was very interested in this new species so we looked after some informations about giraffes


Then, as the weather was no great, we played a game called "Les Milles bornes" (thousand miles)



Look at me, I've got the puncture card in my hand ... I think this will delay Sébastien's trip !!!! (héhéhé!!!)

What a surprise!!!!!!!!!!! Today, Mood has received some souvenirs from Elisabeth

Some chocolates from Vienna *!!!  yum-yum, quite tempting !!!! (Alpina admired Sissi's portrait!, she said she wants the same crown... well maybe we can change chocolate for crown ?)

(*thank you Christina !!!!)

In the afternoon, we went for a walk in Toulouse the "Pink town" named like this because of the colour of the bricks used and indeed, every monuments are made with bricks, which gives a very warm atmosphere!!
Here you can see me in front of the Saint Etienne Cathedral (XI th century)


Then we went to the town center, where is situated the Donjon du Capitole


Built in the XVIth century the Donjon  was once the Archives Tower or the Consistory Tower during the time when the Capitouls were responsible for the administration of the city.

And just behind : the Place du Capitole : a very nice place which is now the home of the Town Hall and the Théâtre National du Capitole


Here are some pictures of the town hall

We had a break in a beautiful tea room. There was many choices of tea, café and pie... I didn't really know what to chose, so Mood recommended me the raspberry pie and I can tell you that it was a really good advise !!! hmmm!!!! Then we took a chocolat viennois (just to think about Elisabeth!)

After this break we got closer to the river Garonne, but first we stopped in front of a magnificent XVIIth century town mansion (Pierre d'Assezat Mansion)


We saw many other old mansions like this, I really loved them ...

Behind me : the Pont Neuf. It's the oldest bridge of the town. It was built between 1544 and 1632 (the building was interrupted by the religion wars). It was unveiled by the king Louis XIV himself!


On the other side you can see The Hotel Dieu Saint Jacques an ancient hospital built in 1257.


If you look on the left, you can see the ruins of a covered bridge