Toulouse was pretty much just a nice little day trip for us. We got in late (around 10 pm) got settled in and went to bed and then got up to see a few sights before taking the night train at 11 pm to Paris. Our first stop was the Japanese garden, filled with flowers, little ponds, metal sculptures and little kids running around in the grass. After the garden we made our way to a few museums. We peeked in the museum windows and admired the architecture of the outer facades and then moved on as we didn’t really have the money to pay the entrance fee, nor the interest in doing so. We get a little hungry after walking for a while and had our first “French” meal of hamburgers and ponme frites, or French fries. While there were a lot of foods in other countries we visited that I really wanted to try, French cuisine haven’t really had that appeal to me. Aside from a fruit tart and possibly escargot, all of the other French dishes are either much too expensive or aren’t that exciting since you can find them really anywhere in the US. Even on the menus at many restaurants you see the same thing as you would see at a restaurant in Minnesota: burgers, pizza, salad, maybe a few unique desserts, but not much is different. After lunch, we walked around the square that houses the capital. Similar to many other European cities, the plaza was surrounded by streets lined with shops. We went into some and looked around and then continued on to the convent in Toulouse which Napoleon used as Barracks at one point. The architecture inside was beautiful, the ceilings the most decorated part of the structure, as many of the paintings were no longer on the wall. We also stopped in the basilica.
After all of our sight seeing, we went back to grab our backpacks from our Air BnB stay (thank the lord for giving us hosts who allow us to leave our packs places), and wandered around until our train was to leave. We sat in the station for a while and then went across the street to sit and eat at a restaurant while we people watched and admired the stone facade of the train station. Finally, we boarded at 10:30 pm and were in for a night sleeping on the train.
Toulouse Highlights
- Japanese Garden
- Capital and plaza
Backpackers Update
- The night train was a good experience but definitely not something I hope to repeat
- We are getting more and more excited to be home as the days go by
- We can’t believe time has gone by so fast!
- At this point, pedicures may not help us… we may have to consider amputation to spare the eyes of the public
Next stop: Paris
Watch Haley Wander 