France: Toulouse, Albi, Montpellier

On Thursday July 7,  I took a high speed train from Stuttgart to Paris, crossed Paris on the Metro and then took another high speed train to Toulouse. I wanted to visit the south of France and also my friend Kerstin who is taking a French language course in Toulouse. It took all day to get from Germany to the south of France and by the time I got my hotel and some dinner it was time for bed.

Toulouse

On Friday I started walking around the old part of the city. It is very beautiful with many old red brick buildings and rose colored stone buildings, cobblestone streets and a more relaxed pace of life compared to Paris.


The most beautiful bridge over the Garonne River is the Pont Neuf.

It was able to withstand a major flood in 1975 when the water was up to the top of the arches.

The church of Les Jacobins with its 22 branched palm tree vault in the apse is quite stunning.

Including its reflection.

The Basilique St. Sernin has a lovely tiered 12th century tower.

And as there are in most European cities,  Toulouse has some lovely parks with fountains.

The Place Capitole at night is very welcoming.

The Old Centreville of Toulouse is quite charming and has many sidewalk cafes, bistros and restaurants as well as shops of all kinds.


Albi

On Saturday Kerstin and I took a bus to Albi,  a small city about 80 km from Toulouse.  The center of Albi-ville is very beautiful with  the most imposing structure being the Cathédral Sainte-Cécile.  

What is now called the Toulouse-Lautrec museum used to be a part of the Palais de la Berbie. There is a very good exhibit of many of his [Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec] works including a fabulous collection of some of his posters he created for Le Moulin Rouge. The man was a prolific artist even though he died quite young.

Le Jardin of the Palais de la Berbie. 

We even saw a bride on horseback on her way to the Judiciare Municipale to get married.

There are several bridges over the River Tarn and looking back at the old city offered many enchanting views.

The streets themselves are picturesque in a quaint way.

The day we were there was a music festival day. There were at least 5 stages set up around the old city with various musicians and groups playing traditional as well as contemporary music. That evening at the main stage the headliner was Joe Cocker. Unfortunately we had to return to Toulouse and we didn't have tickets anyway. It appeared to be sold out  as people were lining up to get in several hours before the opening of the gates.

Albi is a Medieval Era town made [in] famous for its role before, during and after the Albigensian Crusade. The Albigensians, aka Cathars, were considered heretics by the papacy in Rome. The Cathars believed that the church had gotten too wordly with all of its pomp, decoration and elaborate rituals. They preached a very ascetic lifestyle including a vegetarian diet and celibacy. Simon de Montfort led a brutal campaign against them from 1208 until 1229. The citizens of Albi supported the crusade and were spared the horrible excesses committed by the crusaders. I will explain more about this when I write about my visit to Carcasonne.

Montpellier and Aix en Provence

Montpellier was one of the nicest cities I visited in southern France. It is just 8 km from the Mediterranean Sea. It has a good transportation system and a lovely old Centreville. I liked that many of the streets in the center are paved with marble. While I am sure they are slippery in the rain they look and feel great to walk on. It is a university town with several universities there. Even though I was there during the high season for tourists and with classes out for the summer the town has a vibrant youthful feel to it. The biggest and most populated open space there is the Place de la Comedie.

By day there are often markets and parades, (we were there for the Bastille Day celebrations, in the morning a typical patriotic parade of old veterans and current service men). 

 
At night there are open air cafes and restaurants, street performers and many people. 

 
The Promenade de Peyrou offers some fantastic views of the city. At one end of it is Chateau D'Eau.

This was supplied by water from a Roman aqueduct. 

Montpellier has a good public transportation system of buses and trams. Like many European cities it also has a bicycle system where locals can create an account linked to their phone. There are bicycle stations throughout the city. You can 'unlock' a bicycle and then use it for free for about 1/2 hour.  If you use it for longer your account is charged a small fee of 1 or 2 Euros depending on how long you used it.  In Montpellier they were experimenting with a summer program to rent them at the beach. We took a bus about 8km to a town near the beach. We showed the station attendant our bus ticket and I.D. and we were able to use a bicycle for free for 4 hours to ride to the beach, about 3km away. What an intelligent idea and great way to reduce motor vehicle traffic at the beach and in the city centers!!

The beach near Montpellier has clean white sand.  The water  is colder than the East Sea in Danang, Vietnam. It is more like the temperature of the beaches in summer in Delaware or Maryland.  It was very refreshing to go for a swim and add the Mediterranean to my list of waters I have swum in.

While in Montpellier, we did a day trip by train to visit Aix en Provence. Aix is known as the city of a thousand fountains. While I did not see that many, just about every plaza had a fountain.

 We went to Aix to visit some language schools. Kerstin was thinking of relocating to another city in S. France to continue her French studies and I was still hopeful of finding some work in Europe. I visited the American English School there and finally had a frank conversation with one of the administrators. If I was already in possession of a work permit or EU passport then they would consider me for work. However to get a work permit a person needs a business sponsor.  In the EU none of the schools are willing to sponsor non-EU native English speakers. They claim it is too much paperwork for them and they went on to add that the US is even harder for a person from the EU to get into and work.  I don't know if that is true but the point is well taken.

We found the Aix Centreville to be quite crowded with shoppers and choked with motor vehicle traffic. There seemed to be many Parisien high fashion stores in the shopping district and we found out later that Aix is indeed a S. France getaway for high class Parisiens.  Kerstin and I both prefer Montpellier.

Later that evening when we returned to Montpellier we found that there was a large summer 'Estival' happening in the Place de la Comedie and the Promenade Charles De Gaulle. The many local wineries were represented in several wine booths around the promenade and there were several music stages set up and many food booths and tables to sit and eat and drink.  For 4 Euros we were able to get tickets for 3 glasses of a wine of our choice and a wine glass to keep. The crowd was very festive and friendly and we were happy to be there.