![]() ![]() Toulouse is a cycling city with plenty of cycle lanes, and it also offers endless choice for bike hire including the equivalent to the London ‘Boris Bike’, Vélô Toulouse. However, if you’re anything like me and a mere 24 hours in Toulouse makes you feel like you must be doing something all the time, now’s your chance to hire bikes and go for a jaunty ride through the streets to the canal. There’s a leafy tree-lined patch of grass by the river, along with a small river-side kiosk to buy drinks and ice creams, so if your morning walk, wine and sandwich has taken it out of you, a gentle siesta in the shade is exactly what the doctor ordered. A milky coffee is a café crème and that’s as exciting as it gets. Coffee in France is black, short or long. France is a couple of steps behind in the ‘coffee culture’ which I pretend to roll my eyes at, but if I’m ever offered a flat white I’ll never say no. There the pain au chocolat are crisp, breaking off into tissue-thin flakes as you bite, and tasting of butter and chocolate.Īs for coffee, around the corner from Pêché Mignon is La Brûlerie des Filatiers, a speciality coffee roastery and one of our regular haunts. However, Gaylord eventually discovered Pêché Mignon (which means ‘cute sin’!), a small stylish boulangerie with cakes in the windows, and wall of baguettes and breads, and a glass cabinet of pastries and elaborate patisserie. Gaylord’s favourite croissant was from a bakery in New Zealand. Just because you’re in France doesn’t mean every croissant you’re going to eat will be buttery, crisp and delicious. It took us some time to find a favourite boulangerie especially as, and I know this will be a blow to Francophiles, really excellent pain au chocolat, croissants and baguettes have been hard to come by. In Toulouse pain au chocolat are known as chocolatines, just to confuse tourists (and greatly offend Northerners). However, this is a blog for gourmands! Let’s have pain au chocolat. Ideally a coffee and a cigarette (also known as un café– clop). If you’re French, or would like to emulate the French, then a light breakfast is best. The French aren’t known for their breakfasts. Let me take you through Toulouse’s narrow streets on a dining adventure.Ī foodie’s 24 hours in Toulouse must begin with breakfast. Within 24 hours in Toulouse, you will be eating like a local. Plus, best of all in my book, it’s a city for gourmands (greedy foodies). Toulouse may not be Paris with its snobbish sophistication (which étrangers (foreigners) including myself can’t help but yearn for in a weird kind of masochistic admiration), but this city has a sense of locality and community which you’ll never find in a metropolis, as well as all of those artisan options iconic to France – yes the boulangeries, fromageries and bicycles with baguettes in the baskets do exist, but alas so does an entirely French phenomenon of young people pulling shopping bags on wheels. There are vast majestic churches which look more like cathedrals, outdoor food markets where crowds heave around cheese stalls, cute independent shops squashed haphazardly together down side alleys, and terraces full of people eating and drinking throughout the day. Toulouse, also known as la ville rosebecause of its terracotta buildings which glow pink in the setting sun, is full of cobbled streets and alleyways, picturesque river-side sunsets and old buildings with exposed wooden beams. While the Covid-version of education failed his (and most people’s) expectations and he chose to work instead, we decided to stay put. That’s his name) and I moved here in 2020 mid-pandemic for him to study at the university. Although it’s an adorable name for a cat, now I actually live in Toulouse it’s off the table for future pet names (as are the names Manchester and London). For years, my singular exposure to the name (not even the place) was thanks to one of the kittens in the Aristocats, and until I actually visited the city in 2013 on another interrail adventure ( there was one in 2011 too), I’d never put two and two together. Out of France’s five major cities – which also include Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon and Marseilles – Toulouse is often the most overlooked. So, what could be on the agenda for a real foodie with 24 hours in Toulouse in the south of France? It goes without saying, but I’ll write it anyway – France is famous for it’s food. ![]()
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