Toulouse Sights

I have just avoided a group of thieves while looking at my map in the train station in Toulouse France.  Now I am ready to explore this city, my journey through France on my way to Portugal is going great, I have already seen things that I know few tourists ever get to see.  So what was next on my trip?

The capitol building or City Hall was number one on all of the information I found on this city.  So I started walking left from the terminal on Boulevard de la Gare, already I was getting into some architecture that was magnificent.  The time was easy to find on the face of a clock that was as big as a car, placed in the center of a very old looking building across the road and canal.  I came to an intersection that was the Allee Jean Jaures, the road I needed to go down so I turned right as I passed a statue of Mediatheque Jose Cabanis.  I did not know who that was but the statue was very cool and I am sure a good likeness of the man.  Though I was thinking that the guy probably did not like wearing that wig in all this humidity.  The weather was warm and a little humid as I headed down the road.

The Allee Jean Javres is a major road with lots of traffic flowing through, the noise and the smells are almost to much to handle.  With lots of tall non-descriptive buildings my walk was long and I probably would have turned onto a less busy street if it wasn’t covered in trees.  Something about nature has a calming effect on the chaos of busy streets.  I was still thinking at the time that I should have taken another route when I came to some art fountain on the right side of the road.  It kind of looked like a woman that was being turned into a white wave.  There were some other little art pieces in this open area.

Further down the road I finally come to a statue covered park called Place Wilson.  The statues in this park were really well detailed.  I am from a small town in the western part of the United States and we do not have a lot of detailed statues.  If there is a statue at all it is usually some art piece that has to have a plaque so you can tell what it is.  The only other statues around are Totem poles and they almost never have people just animals.  So for me these statues are new and great even though they have been around for a long time.

The Center fountain was really detailed and as I rounded to the other side the naked chick laying on her side came into view, so you can picture this nude woman laying under the sun on some not to soft looking rocks with a fully dressed man sitting higher on the rock admiring this lady his hat tossed to the ground next to him.  Definitely not a Totem pole like back home.

The next park had a castle in one corner of it.  I guess it could have been a church but it sure looked like a castle, but in reality it was the University of Toulouse.  Which explained the many students roaming around the area.  So I blended well with my back pack.  I passed by another piece of art at the center of the park that is a flowing woman sitting on the ground holding her child on her lap.  They look as though they are sledding backwards down a hill.

Toulouse Capitol building

Once through the park I continued down Rue Lafayette until I came to the square that sits in front of the capital building.  This square is huge and looks as if you could fit a whole carnival in it.  The building is great with lots of windows and it surprises me that it is colorful and not just a plain white like some of the other older buildings.   There is a Roman looking triangle arch at the center with statues on top and lots of swirly decorations.  It is no surprise that this was a capitol of this part of France before the Revolution periods.  I was impressed with it all and even more so by the center of the square, an inlaid decoration that had many symbols at each end of it.  I wanted to know more about what its meaning signified but I could not find any information in English at the time.  The only one I really recognize was the scales of justice, though for all I know they could have been scales of trade!  There was an Opera Hall in one side of the square, I will come back someday when I am married and take my wife to the Opera here.

As I write this from my journal my wife is saying that is a good idea!  Looks like a trip to Toulouse is on the calendar.

It was getting late by this time so I headed for the Hotel du Taur I believe it was named after the Rue du Taur located really close to it.  I got a room and hit the hay.  No they did not have hay on the bed, by the way hay is not very comfortable to sleep in.  There are lots of old buildings on this road I am going to explore on the morrow.

So see you next week for more great architecture in Toulouse France.

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