The last time my big sister Anne was in Toulouse was in December 22nd 1992. At that time she and I had taken a year from study and work to travel around different parts of the world and we stopped in town for one night. According to my diary (as I couldn’t possibly remember everything I did on that 9-month trip) we visited the Jacobean church (Couvent des Jacobins), a photography exhibition, ate baguettes, croque monsieurs and chocolate croissant – which I have since learned are not called ‘pain au chocolat’ here like the rest of the country but rather ‘chocolatines’. We also went out to a restaurant with a French lad called Didier that we’d met along the way and ate duck, andouillette and fruit tarts. I was surprised to read that I enjoyed the andouillette sausage which is made from pork intestines as it really is not one of my favourite foods now. I suspect that I was just a very hungry back-packer at the time.
This time around Anne came with one of her daughters (my niece) and we did numerous things including – a Walking tour of Toulouse, a visit to Auch, the Halle de la Machine (which I wrote about in March 2019) accrobranche (tree-surfing) and numerous markets in surrounding villages. Unfortunately a heat wave and some foot injuries prevented us from doing everything that was planned
The town where we live is the home to a Saint: Saint Germaine. Many pilgrims come through the town thoughout the year and visit the basilique and/or the Germaine’s birth place. Here are just a few of the plaques (below) that people have offered to her over the years.
And a big MERCI/thank you to my sister and niece for their visit.
Start with intention 