Midi-Pyrénées

Anniversaries

75th anniversary of the D-Day Landings
June 5 - 6, 2019

Franck A. Perret Museum

Saint-Pierre, Martinique
May 8, 2019

There a so many reasons to visit France in 2019. Visiting Normandy will be a must before, during or after the 75th anniversary of D-Day and the Loire Valley will be festive with Renaissance fever for the 500th anniversary of the French Renaissance & Leonard da Vinci. November 9 update: the opening of the City of Gastronomy and Wine in Dijon has been postponed to 2020/2021

The Top French Cities--soon to be joined by Annecy are a "happening place" featuring museum inaugurals, major sporting events, festival milestones and unexpected biennals - updated June 5, 2018 - see Bordeaux

TOULOUSE – www.toulouse-visit.com

MONTPELLIER – www.montpellier-france.com

For more information, visit the Toulouse Tourist Office at www.toulouse-visit.com.

City region: Occitanie

Population & what they are called: 466,297 inhabitants (2014 census), called Toulousain

Access from Paris:

• by road: about 6 h 30 min (420 miles) via the A20 autoroute l'Occitane

• by train: about 4 h 10 min by TGV from the Gare Montparnasse

• by plane: about 1 h 20 min to the Toulouse-Blagnac Airport

Famous native daughters & sons:

• Abdelilah Chouari, breakdancer world champion

• Claude Nougaro, singer

• Bernard Werber, writer

Most distinctive and/or unique fact or trait (or little known fact):

• Toulouse is nicknamed La Ville Rose (The Pink City) due to the red-brick façades seen all across town.

• The 38 stations of Toulouse’s metro system are unique in that they all house works of contemporary art.

Notable sites:

• Capitole – the 18th-century home of the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall), Théâtre du Capitole (opera house) and the Salle des Illustres (a display hall of 19th-century masterpieces by local artists)

• Basilique Saint-Sernin – the largest remaining Romanesque building in Europe, containing the most beautiful pipe organ in the country

• Couvent des Jacobins – a significant monastic building and the city's red brick jewel of Meridional Gothic architecture

Top annual events:

• Festival Tangopostale – tango and Argentinian culture take over the city with performances, concerts, workshops and numerous cultural events (tangopostale.com)

• Rio Loco – a lively open-air festival combining world music, visual arts, cinema and international cuisine (rio-loco.org/en)

• Siestes Electroniques – free festival of electronic music in an open-air garden (les-siestes-electroniques.com)

Most notable museums:

• Cité de l'Espace – a unique museum and park centered around space exploration (cite-espace.com)

• Musée des Augustins (Musée des Beaux-Arts) – France's second oldest museum, with a large collection of European paintings (augustins.org)

• Les Abattoirs (Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain) – a modern art museum built into the area's old slaughterhouse (lesabattoirs.org)

Culinary specialties:

• saucisse de Toulouse – a special sausage composed of diced pork with no additives or preservatives

• cassoulet toulousain – a slow-cooked stew of white haricot beans, duck confit and saucisse de Toulouse, served in a traditional earthenware pot

• garbure – a hearty and thick peasant soup of cabbage, pork and a mix of other ingredients

Local wines & spirits:

• wines of the Southwest – over 300 grape varieties, 14 named geographical areas and 29 protected appellations all regrouped as “vins du Sud-Ouest,” including the Candie estate within Toulouse and the nearby Fronton vineyard

• crème de violette – a liqueur with taste and color of violet blossoms

Shopping:

• Quartier de la Daurade – the best place for vintage and second-hand shops

• Marché Victor Hugo – the biggest covered market, with restaurants on the first floor

• Quartier Saint-Etienne – antique shops fill the little streets of neighborhood around the Saint-Étienne Cathedral

Most popular night spots:

• Quartier des Carmes – one of the most active and dynamic neighborhood, with a vibrant range of popular bars and tapas restaurants

• Place Saint-Pierre – a main nightlife area with many bars full of students

• Rue Gabriel-Peri (near Jean-Jaurès Metro) – a good cluster of nightclubs, concert halls and bars

Local population’s favorite activities (or hangouts):

• Canal du Midi – crowds of walkers, cyclists and rollerbladers take move along its banks every day

• Garonne riverbank – a great place to observe the city skyline or step into a floating guinguette for a bite to eat in summer

• Jardin des Plantes – a 200-year-old sculpture garden for people in search of nature

Local industries:

• aerospace industry – home to one of the world’s largest aeronautics manufacturers, Airbus, as well as the Galileo positioning system, the SPOT satellite system, the Aerospace Valley and more

In Pop Culture:

• The Musketeer (D’Artagnan) – the 2001 film by Peter Hyams with Catherine Deneuve, shot in the Salle des Illustres of the Capitole

• Lemming – the 2005 movie by Dominik Moll about love and betrayal

• The Frozen Dead (Glacé), by Bernard Minier – a thriller novel, the first of the series involving Commandant Martin Servaz, a Toulouse city cop

Route Description

Inviting travelers to explore this group of 28 cities is one of France’s ways to share the rich and varied history, heritage, cultural happenings, gastronomy and all aspects of French joie de vivre that they offer each in their own ways.

Key figures

2700 hotels in total—270,000 beds which means an average number of 52 rooms per hotel