Toulouse, the fourth largest city in France, is one of the largest cities we expect to visit. It did not, however, seem as big as Mark anticipated it would be.
Usually as we approach a city we set Gertrude, our GPS, to lead us in. This trip our GPS is a Garmin. Last year the van company provided a Tom Tom. There are significant differences, among them that the Tom Tom menu offers to locate the tourist information office. That is a useful tool as it often gets you to the historic center of town. We’ve prepared a list of what we ask for (in no particular order):
We arrived in Toulouse at about 2:00 pm to fairly quiet streets. We each commented on how the brick and grillwork on the buildings reminded us of the French Quarter of New Orleans. We had turned off Gertude and were following the signs to the City Center when they disappeared.
Then, we saw a collection of signs:
The number of signs pointing in different directions overwhelmed us (well, yes, it is a composite of two sets of signs… but they were at the same intersection) and the synagogue apparently called the “Church of St. Aubin” confused us also. This, we realize now, means the Synagogue near the Church of St. Aubin. We followed the signs anyway and ended up in a little neighborhood where we were able to park the van and eat our lunch.
We still had no clear idea of where we were, but walking back out toward the main street we were able to get a nice couple of photos of the synagogue.
The text above the entry reads: “Blessed may you be in your comings and blessed may you be in your goings.”
We wandered a bit and found a main avenue with signs to learn that we were no more than three blocks from the center of town. We had done very well… even with getting lost.
Most informational signs in the cities are directed at car, not pedestrian traffic. Nonetheless, we found the central square with the tourist information office (across from the post office). We picked up a map along with instructions on how to find “the best chocolate store in town.” The young woman directed us to the streets surrounding the old market square, named after Victor Hugo (and indicated in the composite photo).
We encountered a local labor strike demonstration along the way. We were told that this group strikes often and is not taken too seriously.
As we arrived at Victor Hugo square, the main market was closing, but we did find a number of chocolate shops all clustered on both sides of the street, no more than ten meters from each other.
However, no matter how many times we walked around the area we could not find the one the tourist office had suggested, named Olivier. After more asking and more half-understood and wrong instructions we were directed to… an artisanal olive store. Mark likes olives. The proprietor was outside re-arranging his display and was very kind. He even invited us in to taste his chocolate covered almonds in the shapes of olives, but he knew nothing of Olivier and could not help.
We thanked him and wandered on having given up on Olivier, turned a couple more corners, whereupon, lo and behold…
The store has been a local institution since 1780, claiming to be the oldest chocolate maker in France. It is now owned by an American family (from Cleveland, OH), ready to take the business international. The local proprietor is the sister of the man who bought it. She was happy to explain the story to us. Their ganaches were the most moist we’ve experienced.
Our friend Sheryl, who traveled with us to Egypt has friends in Toulouse… the former nanny of her children. Marie had been helpful getting Janet’s lost luggage to Egypt. We had been trying to contact them.
In addition, I had been trying to reach Robert Cumberford, a Nisus Writer user who had visited the Nisus offices in California a few times and had invited us to visit him in Tremouille… near the Lascaux caves. We tried the previous year but he was too far west of our route. This year we had hoped to get there, but our adventures heading north and east out of Spain had taken longer than anticipated and, this time, Robert was too far north of our route. We still hope to visit the tiny town of Tremouille and Robert.
We had difficulty contacting Alex and Marie by phone and were directed to an unusually nice internet cafe where we were able to use Mark’s PowerBook. We were surprised to have a phone call from Sheryl just then. She called Alex, who called us and gave us instructions to their home. Both the instructions and the address were a tiny bit garbled, but we had enough information so that, trying numerous permutations using the GPS, we were able to find the neighborhood. We asked for directions from the proprietor at the local pizza shop who guessed correctly. We enjoyed meeting Marie, Alex and their daughters. They extended warm hospitality to us, including dinner, great conversation and a “palette on their floor.” By the time we got up the next morning, only the baby and the nanny were home. We continued on our way.
