Saturday, February 1, 2025 - We take a walking tour of Toulouse, rest, then walk around all evening soaking it all in. Sunny 55°F (10°C)

Map of our walking tour:

The walk will take us to most of the main historical points of interest on the east side of the Garonne River and we look forward to learning something about the history of this old city. Making it to the meeting spot for Harry's Free Tour of Toulouse by 10am feels like a huge win, and makes this the first day we feel like we are overcoming our jet-lag. Even still, we show up late and get called out by Harry the guide. Ah well, he's a character and tells us some great stories alongside the history of Toulouse. It's cold out, but it's also really sunny so the walking is easy.

The tour begins outside the Basilica of Saint-Sernin which was completed (eventually) in 1096. It was an important stop on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrim trail.

I mean, the age of things here in Europe is mind-boggling when we're used to things being a couple hundred years old, rather than a thousand. Or so. Things were built to last! Well, at least the stuff that didn't burn down (hence all the usage of stone and brick).

Jamil chatting with Harry the guide and bonding over past software engineering memories as we walk through the streets.

We ended up in the Place du Capitole, which we visited previously on Day 3 where Harry gave us a few stories about the Capitole building, and how it has been updated over the centuries so that it is difficult to say what the date it was built.

We then headed over to the Couvent des Jacobins, a very important ediface to the Dominican order, which was founded in Toulouse in 1215. They did some awful things here; torture and imprisonment and killing. But they did build lasting buildings. It's built more like a fortress than a church. That was probably a hint about all the killing.. Did I mention that was bad?

We walked down to the river and view was serene. They used to have frequent floods here, so they've controlled and contained it.

We learned that the area in which Toulouse is located, the "Occitanie" has it's own language, and this is why streets all have two signs. One is in French, and the other is in Occitan or langue d'oc. So this is Rue du Tabac in French and Carriera del Tabat in Occitan.

Next we visited the basilica Notre Dame de la Daurade, established in 410 CE when the original building, a temple dedicated to Apollo, was "allowed" to be converted to Christianity by Emperor Honorius. The entryway is pretty unprepossessing:

But inside is beautiful

Including an incredibly detailed ceiling.

This place is especially well known for the "Black Mary" or "Black Madonna" statue. The original icon was stolen in the fifteenth century, and its first replacement was burned by Revolutionaries in 1799 on the Place du Capitole. The icon presented today is an 1807 copy of the fifteenth century Madonna. Blackened by the hosts of candles, the second Madonna has been known since the sixteenth century as Notre Dame La Noire.

According to Harry, churches are called "basilicas" if they have a relic, such as a body part of a famous person or saint. Since the relic here was this statue of the Madonna, and since it was stolen and is now represented by a papier-maché replica, technically, this place is no longer a basilica, but apparently you can't un-basilic a basilica.

Next on the stop was the "Mayor's House" which is now the Place d'Assezat and is a hotel.

The mayors of Toulouse decided after a big fire to ban the Tudor style of half timbered beam and straw construction.

I guess one slipped through unnoticed. And to build their own towers bigger and bigger.

The last stop on the tour was a small church on Rue de la Pommes that had a big history.

In WWI, Toulouse was home to many aviators, due to a history of building airplanes outside the city. When Hitler marched into Paris, one of the first things he did was try to force Toulouse to surrender its aviators. Gopd aviators were difficult to find and were a strategic advantage in the war. A woman named only "Francoise" became a hero by hiding seven hundred of Toulouse's aviators in the basement of this tiny church for months, and smuggling them over the Pyrenees into Spain over the course of the rest of the war. Hitler never got his hands on them.

After the walking tour, we were pretty tired, so we thanked Harry and headed back to our apartment for a rest, and a late lunch. We had dinner in the room as well, pasta with pesto, veggies and anchovies. We went out for a walk later, around sunset, and discovered the nice vibe in several of the city's squares where drumming groups were performing.