Toulouse

Toulouse became my home for one year as a part of our expat experience in the Midi-Pyrénées, the largest region in France, which is located between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and is made up of 8 departments : Ariège, Aveyron, Gers, Haute-Garonne, Hautes-Pyrénées, Lot, Tarn and Tarn-et-Garonne. Except the Hautes-Pyrénées department all are named after the river that crosses them. Toulouse is the capital of the Midi-Pyrénées region and also of the Haute-Garonne department.

 

 

The emblem of Toulouse are violets. They were grown by market gardeners to the north of the city from the 19th Century. "La Violette de Toulouse" is a registered trademark and comes in many forms - sweets, perfume, liquor…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

from Wikipedia: 

" Toulouse lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 150 km (93 miles) from the Mediterranean Sea and 230 km (143 miles) from the Atlantic Ocean, and 580 km (360 miles) away from Paris. With 1,202,889 inhabitants as of 1 January 2008, the Toulouse metropolitan area is the fourth-largest in France.
Toulouse is the centre of the European aerospace industry, with the headquarters of Airbus, Galileo Positioning System, the SPOT Satellite System, the Aerospace Valley...
Toulouse was the capital of the former province of Languedoc (provinces were abolished during the French Revolution), the former Visigothic Kingdom and was the capital of the historical region of Occitania (Southern France).
A city with a typical architecture of Southern France, Toulouse has two historic sites added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Canal Du Midi (shared with other cities), since 1996, and the Basilica of St. Sernin under the description: World Heritage Sites of the Routes of Santiago de Compostela in France since 1998.
Culturally, Toulouse is home to the Galerie du Château d'eau, one of the oldest places dedicated to photography in the world, the Académie des Jeux floraux, the oldest literary society of the Western World and, according to many historians, was one of the places where capitalism was invented."

 

 

 

 

 

Canal Du Midi



The Garonne river

 

Basilica of St. Sernin

 

 

 

We relocated to France from Germany because of my husband's job offer. As always relocating isn't easy, and for many reasons it was rather stressful period for my husband and I at that time, but in general we loved living in France, especially that part of the country.

 

You can see on the map, we were one and a half hours from the beach in Narbonne /Gruissan ...the Mediterranean (C) which became our popular summer destination, of course. We are also hiking enthusiasts, so being about the same distance from The Pyrénées National Park (B), located along the border of France and Spain, made this location just perfect.

We travelled and explored quite a lot when living in France. I will write more about it later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wasn't allowed to work so I concentrated on learning the language and exploring the way of life in France. I was attending French full-time at Alliance Française  right in the city centre at La place du Capitole, can you believe it? What a location for a school!

Regarding the language it was a lot of work and struggle at the beginning, but I love the French language. Unfortunately I haven't spoken French for a very long time. I hope I won't forget it all. I guess I need to move back to France ;-) Who knows, maybe one day....