Toulouse in three districts!By Georges RouzeauToulouse has retained its warm blend of Spanish-style conviviality and French-style neighbourhood spirit. Pink, ochre or red as the day progresses, the capital of the Midi-Pyrénées region offers an attractive cocktail: classic heritage, restored industrial premises and trendy districts. It's still a secret, but not for much longer. Toulouse is worth much more than a stopover on the way to your holiday destination. Steeped in pink, red or ochre, it should be explored on foot at a leisurely pace, taking in its old districts and pedestrian alleys. With the arrival of fine weather, the Renaissance courtyards become covered in flowers and vegetation and you can easily picture yourself living here, since life is so pleasant. The city of Toulouse, where terracotta brick prevails, offers a particularly attractive blend of classic architectural heritage, restored old industrial premises and trendy streets, where it is pleasant to stroll between shopping and coffee on café terraces.  Le Capitole © OT Toulouse Old Toulouse: from the Capitole to Saint-Sernin via the student quarterIn Toulouse, everything starts at the Place du Capitole, central crossroads and meeting place of the locals. An emblem of the city and Midi-Pyrénées region, a bronze Languedoc cross is inlaid at the centre of the square, when it is not hidden by the market that is held there. This square, which swarms with people until late in the evening, takes its name from the town hall, the Capitole, where the capitouls, elected magistrates, met for centuries to govern the city. All around the square stand arcades dating from the 19th century, which are reminiscent of those on the rue de Rivoli in Paris. The numerous brasserie terraces, such as those of the Bibent, Grand Café Albert or Café des Arcades, are besieged at the first hint of fine weather. Its majestic façade of the classical order alternates brick, stone and marble. In the courtyard, the Renaissance great door is crowned by one of the rare statues of Henri IV made during his lifetime, in 1607. The ceremonial rooms on the first floor, decorated in an extraordinary pompous style, can be visited freely. In the second room, the fresco by Henri Martin, entitled LesPromeneurs des bords de la Garonne (1906), shows a bearded figure wearing a boater and a beige raincoat: this is Jean Jaurès, native of Castres. In homage to the virtues of the Republic, the last room - the so-called Salle des Illustres - is full of stucco and trompe-l'½ils.  Rue du Taur © OT Toulouse A radical change of atmosphere lies in store by taking the rue du Taur, to the north of the square,which plunges us straight into Toulouse's "Latin quarter". A compact crowd of students (there are 115,000 of them in the pink city) wanders about here until late at night. In this hubbub, Spanish almost prevails over French. Cybercafés and cheap eating places for a quick bite to eat are legion. Specialising in Latin canon law and theology, the university tradition of Toulouse - the biggest outside Paris - dates back to 1229, just after the crusade against the Albigensians. Colleges, intended to house poor students, sprang up in what was at the time just a suburb on the outskirts of the city. Two of these colleges - considerably altered - remain. The first one, called Collège de l'Esquille, is notable for its stone door that gives onto the rue du Taur: it is the work of Nicholas Bachelier, emblematic architect and sculptor of the city during the Renaissance. At the far end of the courtyard, a building houses the Cinémathèque de Toulouse (film archive), the second largest after the one in Paris. It is a lively place where there is always something going on. The second college, on the corner of the rue du Taur and rue du Périgord, houses the Audiovisual School. Go into the courtyard and turn around to take a look at the half-timbered gallery, the only vestige of the original cloister. At the end of the street you come face to face with one of the masterpieces of Romanesque architecture, the Saint-Sernin basilica, whose impressive proportions are more reminiscent of a Gothic cathedral than a small chapel of the Auvergne...  L'hôpital de la Grave © OT Toulouse The Saint-Cyprien district, or renovated ToulouseTo get off the beaten track, we invite you to cross the Garonne to explore the Saint-Cyprien district. It is still a village with its squares, such as Place del'Estrapade, its covered market made of iron, where a daily market is held, and its alleys, which are pleasant to wander around. From the Middle Ages, the plague-stricken, sick people, prostitutes, unmarried mothers and beggars were confined to this suburb, taken in and treated with an iron hand by religious orders and hospices. The rest of the district was inhabited by workmen, small shopkeepers and craftsmen whose main activity, near the Garonne, was in the leather trade. The Hôtel-Dieu Saint-Jacques and Hôpital de la Grave still bear witness to this charitable past. The former accommodates a Musée de la Médecine, reserved for enthusiasts; the latter offers up for admiration the blue-green dome of its chapel, a veritable landmark visible for miles around, and its maze of courtyards where pink brick prevails. Peace and quiet reign supreme, since many buildings are empty.  Les Abattoirs © OT Toulouse The two finest architectural creations in this district are in fact renovations. First of all the abattoirs, an immense industrial building from the 19th century, transformed into the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Toulouse and the Midi-Pyrénées under the name of. TheAbattoirs. (photo opposite). The restoration set out to show the colossal interior volumes to advantage. In the basement, a "monster" work by Picasso is suspended beneath a shaft of natural light: it is the stage curtain made for the Romain Rolland play, Le 14 juillet (1936), which measures over 8 m by 13. Be sure to go to the slab that forms a terrace overlooking the Garonne, in the gardens of the museum: this temperamental river, with its dreaded floods, forms a deafeningly noisy cataract at this spot. The panoramic view of the other bank is striking.  Le Château d'eau © OT Toulouse Another "historic" restoration, the Château d'eau (water tower) is a pink brick tower built on the banks of the Garonne (photo opposite). This pumping structure supplied water, until 1870, to 90 fountains in Toulouse. Since 1974, it has been a pioneering space for photographic exhibitions in France. All the big names are regularly exhibited here. It's fun to go down to the basement where you can see, through glass slabs, the network of pipes in the machine room. Down below, along the quayside, the Prairie des Filtres (photo opposite, on the left) has become the most popular park with the locals, joggers, fishermen and walkers alike. The name of this old island, which gradually became connected to the bank over the centuries, comes from its function as a "filter": before being directed towards the famous water tower just above, the water decanted in the alluvial sand here. The second fortnight in June, the Rio Loco! festival gets into swing for a week of South American music. They say that the atmosphere is crazy!  L'hôtel de Clary © OT Toulouse Les Carmes, a secret and trendy districtBehind the Place de l'Esquirol, the district of Les Carmes (much of it pedestrianised) is well worth two hours of your time. Its roots date back to the Middle Ages, when the consuls of Toulouse decided to build a covered market on Place de l'Esquirol, that was to be destroyed and rebuilt many times. Although nothing now remains of the latter, this district nevertheless retains an artisanal spirit and, with its bars and trendy boutiques, attracts a friendly crowd. As for the rue de la Dalbade, it lines up the finest mansions in Toulouse, where the famous capitouls resided. There is a succession of beautiful façades at numbers 7, 11, 18 and 22. The star attraction of the street is the Hôtel de Clary (no. 25, photo opposite) whose façade, made entirely of stone, is an undisputed sign of opulence in this city of brick. At the time, the stone, a variety of marble from the Pyrenees, was transported by waterway at an exorbitant price. And don't miss the church of Notre Dame de la Dalbade. Although this building, typical of southern Gothic, looks like a military fortress, its Renaissance door is a marvel of elegance despite the presence, in the tympanum, of a 19th century polychrome ceramic of resolutely Saint-Sulpice-style inspiration.  Rue toulousaine © OT Toulouse Les Carmes is also the kingdom of shopping. For clothes, the district offers the usual shops selling inexpensive young styles (in the rue des Filatiers for example), but also trendier and more chic clothes (from G-Star to Agnès B in the rue du Coq-d'Inde). You can also opt for the shops selling second-hand clothes, designer or otherwise, for adults or children. The rue des Couteliers is lined with shops selling musical instruments, a few record dealers and several crafts shops, antiques dealers and art restorers. Surfing the anti-globalisation trend, certain shops specialise in fair-trade products... So where can you go for a drink in this district? Morning coffee is inevitably taken at the...Bar du Matin ("Morning Bar") of course! Despite being opposite the multi-storey and extraordinarily ugly concrete car park of the Place des Carmes, its terrace is always full. Intellectuals buried in their newspapers, inhabitants of the district, trendy young things and old regulars get together in this Toulouse institution to talk about this and that and even philosophy Why not join them? Practical informationTourist OfficeSquare Général De Gaulle 31000 Toulouse Tel. : 05 61 11 02 22 Fax.: 05 61 23 74 97 infos@ot-toulouse.fr www.toulouse-tourisme.com Musée de la médecine Rue Viguerie Hôtel-Dieu St-Jacques 31000 Toulouse Tel. : 05 61 77 82 33 The Abattoirs (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Toulouse and the Midi-Pyrénées) 76, allée Charles de Fitte 31000 Toulouse Tel. : 05 62 48 58 00 www.lesabattoirs.org The Château d'Eau (water tower) 1, place Laganne 31300 Toulouse Tel. : 05 61 77 09 40 www.galeriechateaudeau.com |
Tourism and Gastronomy
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