Toulouse, 100%

I have always thought that to fall in love with travel, you need to wake up with the place you are visiting. Many years ago, when I traveled far less, when every trip to France was so precious, I used to get up at sunrise and walk the streets of Paris, feeling that morning energy as the people readied themselves for the day ahead. Sidewalks washed, men and women grabbing a croissant and a coffee at cafe bars, kids hurrying to school. These days I'm tied to hotel breakfasts (so, no croissant by a window of a local cafe) and I hatch plans for the day, and so I've let the early morning walks slip by.

But today is different. I mean, for one thing, I have a fat sausage of a lump hanging over my eye (but the wound itself looks magnificent! Biologique sealing worked its magic). And I have only to stay in Toulouse. No trips outside the city. Sure, there is a fabulous breakfast right here, in my hotel, but I'm still feeling full from last night's late dinner. So I pass on it and instead, I walk over to the Place du Capitole -- where stands the splendid City Hall (built in the 1750s) and where normally you'd be seeing a great expanse of a square, with a bronze Occitan cross worked into the pavement. Not today though. They're still cleaning up after the weekend wine festival. Let me post a snapshot of the Capitole anyway. Just to get a feeling for what it's like.  Imagine that the white tents are gone already. Puff! All open and beautiful.

I would have gone inside the Capitole, but it's closed until later in the day. I read that there is a beautiful room painted by Paul Gervais (he was popular at the turn of the 20th century for his sensuous paintings of nude women). He dedicated it to love. That might be fun to see. No matter. Not today.

In the back of the Capitole is the oldest building in Toulouse -- the 16th century Donjon, or the archive tower. Take a look (it now houses the Tourist Info Center so I know it well).

My main reason for being here now is that there are numerous cafes and restaurants spilling out onto the square, including the ever beautiful Le Bibent. I understand they have a breakfast formula: coffee, croissant, fresh orange juice. That's pretty much all they have in the morning, but it is exactly what I want! In fact, I ask for a second cafe creme just to prolong the moment.

I sit outside, but the interior of this place is truly something else. Here, take a look:

I pass on the splendor and do some serious people watching outdoors.

From here, I walk in the direction of the Basilica of Saint-Sernin. It's a very agreeable street, with plenty of shops along the way. And here's an important one: a chocolatier, who sells what is Toulouse's most important sweet treat: candied violets.

I know a number of little ones who would get a kick out these (especially two purple loving girls back home), though it is also a pleasurable treat for grownups: throw it into a glass of champagne and watch it fizz!

In the alternative, you can pick up chocolates with violet infused ganache. What do you think, Ed? 

(The chocolatier, working on his chocolates...)

Still further down, there is a small shop with, well, very pretty little things. Like cards. I'm still in the habit of sending cards to grandkids...

Okay, finally I get to Saint-Sernin. Just like from my hotel window, only bigger!

To tell you the truth, I'm not a fan of visiting large churches. Yes, I did go in yesterday to Albi's cathedral and I do go into this Basilica here in Toulouse, but as always, the interiors leave me feeling a bit like a fish out of water and in a very enormous jungle. It's not that I necessarily dislike religious architecture or art (though I do find some of it disturbing), and I certainly have very warm feeling toward music written for religious purposes, but churches and especially cathedrals seem like such frightening creations in their enormity, in the expense required for their construction, in that smell that overwhelms you as you enter, in the cold stone and hard benches that seem so typical of European places of worship. So mostly I keep it short. And I rarely go back.

I give the Basilica its once is enough moment, in part because the other architecturally great building here -- the Jacobins Convent, is closed today (I was to see it yesterday, after my return from Albi, but obviously I passed on it then, therefore passing on it altogether).

Back to Toulouse rambles.

I am determined to do some shopping. Petit Bateau. Galleries Lafayette. That kind of shopping.

I have grown terribly unused to going into any stores and honestly, I do not miss it. Nor do I need anything, except perhaps a short sleeved shirt for this continuing warm weather we are having in France. Still, I remember when I once knew these clothes lines so well, and when I enjoyed picking out just one thing that would become that year's special for me. 

But the kids -- I miss going to kid shops and buying things for them to wear, things I'd be confident that they would fit into and like. With the five, I feel confident now only with two (the girls in Chicago). The Madison bunch pose a challenge. Snowdrop has very specific and very unpredictable requirements for herself. Sometimes she doesn't like even items that she herself will have picked out. I try to zero in to where she is heading and sometimes I get it. Oftentimes I don't. Sparrow -- nothing fits him. Shirts, yes. Well, maybe. Pants -- they all fall down. Sandpiper -- same thing. Too, the boys don't much care what they wear. So to shop for them while traveling, as a special treat -- it makes no sense. 

Nonetheless I do it today. For all, though perhaps more for myself. It brings back memories of past trips and, too, I figure if I hit one or two great ones (especially for the Chicago girls), then the rest can be just okay, or less than okay, in which case they can donate the clothes to a good cause.

And then I realize that it is lunchtime and I'm going on just one croissant and two cups of coffee. Call me unimaginative, but I go back to Le Bibent on the Square. I know this place to have good food and I can't say that my breakfast tested their kitchen any. It's my last lunch in Toulouse -- let me make it count. (I am rewarded by coming back: I'd left my sweater here. I did not even remember bringing it with me this morning, let alone leaving it. The waiter handed it to me as I approached.)

I order a pate en croute maison aux cepes et foie gras with a side salad. You can tell what it is by just looking at the picture.

And a dessert, because in France, I cannot pass by such stuff. I ask for a light one. I get the prettiest fig, in a raspberry coulis (with raspberry sherbet on top).

I sit and watch the world go by. My, there are a lot of children. On the streets, in the restaurants. I look up holidays and sure enough -- the French are giving the kids a two week break from school: les vacancees de la Toussaint. All Saints holiday. (Face shading and blurring is intentional here. Such are the requirements of street photography in a country that doesn't much care for street photography.)

Before I get up from lunch I do something that changes my plans for the afternoon. I take a look at myself in the camera lens of my iPhone. 

The wound is getting to be so good! The swelling around the eye? Hmmm... It looks like I was in a bar brawl and I lost. Big time. Or, I suffer from domestic violence and my tormentor lands the punches where it counts. Black, blue, puffing out.

Time to buy some cover up makeup, so that I do not frighten away the populace. 

I stop in the first makeup store that I see -- MAC. I dont know anything about this so I ask the person there to help me figure out how to cover it up.

She does a masterful job using not one but two preparations.

But how much do I want to spend for the time that I am in France -- the only time I am ever going to use this makeup? I end up buying a simple powder, which in my book is hugely expensive, even as she assures me that that is not really going to do the job for me, black and blue being a stronger color than my light skin tone.

Keeping that in mind, I stop by a Pharmacy (Open!!) and ask for additional advice. The older pharmacist, who surely has been around and knows her stuff, sells me some Arnica. I do not know what it is, but she tells me to suck it under my tongue every hour. Or maybe for an hour. Or maybe after an hour has passed. My hotel people explain to me that it is a homeopathic remedy and so now I know that for sure I wont take strange homeopathic pills, no matter how nice and sympathetic the pharmacist was. Maybe I'll stick with applying a warm washcloth, though  not just yet because that masterful makeup job will be getting me through dinner without too many people staring at me.

And then I take all those shopping bags home, and I'm thinking -- I'm not going to head out again for that walk along the Canal du Midi, the one that I've wanted to take ever since I came to Toulouse. Nothing, simply nothing tires me out more than a morning spent in numerous shops. Even nice shops with nice people greeting you and feeling sorry for your injuries. 

I head back to the hotel and by dusk, I am in their garden, sipping a Negroni and talking to Ed and scribbling some cards to the kids back home.

For dinner I go to Aux Pieds Sous La Table (for those rusty in French: "Under the Table"). I'm sure my hotel prompted me to go there -- it's in line with their other recommendations: great price (36 E for three courses, all inclusive) for carefully prepared food. The way they do it? The restaurant offers a very small selection: two appetizers, three mains, two desserts. You choose one of each. If you love food, you'll smile at the descriptions -- could they be more complicated??

My appetizer: poireau poche au jus d'orange, moules, creme monter au vinaigre de sapin, bouillon au pointimarron et saffran, et croutons a l'encore de seiche. (Roughly: poached leek in orange juice, mussels, cream whipped with pine vinegar, pumpkin and saffran broth, and cuttlefish croutons.)

Then: truite, puree de betterave, pomme de terre fumée, jus de pomme de terre a la ciboulette, celeri rave glace au vinaigre de cidre et jus de pomme. (So: trout, beet puree with smoked potato, potato juice with chives, celeriac glazed with cider vinegar and apple juice.)

Dessert: Cepe et chocolat: cepe caramelise, glace aux cèpes, mousse chocolat et crumble cacao. (This one may blow your mind: porcini mushrooms and chocolate: caramelized mushrooms, porcini ice cream and cocoa crumble.)

I have to say, of all the meals I ate in Toulouse and Albi, this one was the most creative (and, too, not overwhelming!). The leeks were artistically exquisite, the trout was as perfect as you can get, and the dessert was probably one of the more original ones I'd eaten anywhere. Young staff, lots of enthusiasm.

I walk back to the hotel sorting through all my Toulouse impressions. They're good. The hotel is fantastic. The city strolls were beautiful. The food -- of course, a highlight. But then comes the next question: would I return? It reminds me a little of Parma in Italy which also checked many of the same boxes. Yet I've resisted going back after the pandemic, despite the fact that I made a friend there and she keeps asking why I'm staying away. 

I suppose it's because most cities are only a grand curiosity for me as they present themselves for the first time. It's rare that I long to go back. (The exception here is Paris.) But, never say never, right? 

The night is lively, but unlike in Paris, the street scene after dark is more relaxed, less frenetic here. 

As I look around me, I can't help but see a bit of the Catalan in all these people from L'Occitane. I'd met a family at the hotel from Barcelona and for a moment I thought they were from here. They looked like they should be from here. Oh, that energy of a people split by boundaries not of their own making! What a strange, fascinating and beautiful  people we are -- when we aren't fighting and spitting at each other for no good reason!

Tomorrow morning I leave for Paris.