France 2025 - Day 11 / Toulouse

Steps today: 24 464 / 16.13 km

The forecast was iffy for today and tomorrow, yet slightly better tomorrow so we reserved that day for a day trip and stayed in Toulouse today.

We went for a rainy walk in the morning, circling back to a café not far from the hotel for breakfast around 9AM (Frank got one too, he's not just there watching me eat!)

Next was a drizzly walk through the Japanese Gardens

 

Then a walk along the canal as the rain finally let up... so much greenery!!!!

And finally a visit to the Church of the Jacobins which we missed a few days ago because we arrived just after it closed.  The vaults were SO HIGH! it was impossible to capture the feeling in pictures.

We then moved on to the cloister just as the rain started again

Time for a drink stop! The rain was light enough that we could still sit outside.

For lunch, it was back to Place du Capitole again to try the last resto we had left to try. Neapolitan pizza for the second time on this trip - my favourite kind! (the other time was in Bordeaux)

Our walk after lunch brought us to the Église Saint Pierre des Chartreux

That pizza killed me, I was dragging myself along, so we stopped for a strong drink to help push down the food!  It helped!

Back on our feet, we crossed the river to explore some sights on the other side

Some people might think that visiting cemeteries is ghoulish, but in Europe they are more like sculpture gardens, they are attractions in their own right.  We explored the Cimetière de Terre Cabade and it was fascinating.  It was also getting hot because the clouds were thinning out and the sun started bearing down on us.

On the way back to the center of town from the cemetery, we decided to stop for a drink to cool off. Well, we must have had an angel on our shoulders because not 5 minutes after we sat down, a huge storm cloud came along and it was a deluge! Thunder and lightning and rivers of water pouring down the the street. It was crazy, we were definitely stranded there for a while so one drink easily turned into two.

We waited and waited and waited, and eventually the storm passed so we made our break for it to start heading back. We picked a place about 5 minutes from the hotel in case the skies opened up again! It was about 7PM by then.

After this, it was straight to bed! We were pooped!!!