Toulouse Environs

Toulouse had been a bit grey and cold during the week, but the weekend turned out beautifully sunny, if not warm. So my plan to spend the weekend end seeing a few things nearby worked out splendidly.

Saturday was my day for Albi, which some friends (who stayed there last year) recommended highly. And they were right. It is a lovely little town, an hour away by train, which has some more, and different, magnificent red brick World Heritage listed buildings. The cathedral is amazing both inside and out, with a kind of painting decoration I’d never seen before, and there is a whole ecclesastical complex along the river with beautiful gardens. Every few steps was another vista that just demanded a photo.

Sadly the whole thing was built by the Catholics as part of their determination to stamp their authority on the region after their victory over the Cathars in the 13th century, in the Albigensian crusade, as Albi was the headquarters of the Cathars. It is said how often the backstory of these beautiful places comes from subjugation.

Being a smaller town, the restaurants in the centre weren’t tourist traps, so I had a lovely lunch of the menu de jour sitting right next to one of the many picturesque mediaval buildings just next to the main square.

Albi has a tiny connection with Australia – it is the home town of the Count of La Perouse, who led a french scientific expedition around the world for three years starting in 1785, inspired by Captain Cook. The expedition sailed into Botany Bay in 1788, stayed a few months at the same time as the First Fleet, and then sailed off never to be heard from again (the remains of the wreck was discovered 40 years later in Vanuatu). There is a little garden there called Square Botany Bay, and an enormous statue of La Perouse with some of the cannons found in the wreck).

To complete my immersion into french culture, I decided to go to the Ballet, at the Toulouse Opera, which is literally 3 minutes walk from my apartment. My seat neighbour told me that the Toulouse Ballet doesn’t have a great reputation, but the orchestra does, which was why she was there. And they were excellent.

On Sunday I hired a better bike than the bike share ones from during the week, and rode 20km along the Canal du Midi until I was well into the country side. It was lovely to see how much the path was used no matter where you were – from teenagers gossiping in their pyjamas, to racewalkers, strollers, and a runner who overtook my bike several times (I’m hoping he was an olympian in training).

All of which was a good way of tiring myself out so that I could sleep very well before my first two overnight board meetings of the trip. While it’s never as good as being there in person in the right time zone, I’m getting pretty experienced at temporarily rejetlagging myself back onto Australian time with the careful application of exercise and coffee.