At the end of our trip we will either stay 2 nights in Toulouse (one of us has a 6:30 AM flight) or one night in Toulouse and one night in another city fairly close by. What would you recommend? Also where has anyone stayed in Toulouse. How much time do you need to see the city? How is the shopping and restaurents there? Thanks

I think I answered this before - anyway, here it is again.

We've started or ended trips several times in Toulouse. We'll do the same this Sept.

We've stayed at the Mermoz and the President. Both are nice hotels, and the President is a little less expensive. We selected these because they are both close to the train station, where we've picked up & dropped off cars.

Visiting Toulouse is about a 3/4 day event. Follow the two walking itineraries in the Green Michelin Guide for Languedoc.

If you don't want to stay in Toulouse, stay in Albi instead - it's all freeway to the airport. Albi is a gem of a town.

This Sept, we are staying at one of our favorite restaurants in the Gorges de l'Aveyron area, which also has rooms. It's not too far from the airport if you don't have a real early flight (ours leaves at 10). The hotel is Les Jardin des Thermes in Feneyrols, which is on the Aveyron River.

Restaurants in Toulouse are nice - we dined at Emile twice, which has a nice outside seating area. It was not as good as others we dined at in other regions of the Languedoc. Both time we were there, the Michelin 2 star Michel Sarran was closed. It's a reasonably priced two star. We checked out the 1 star Cosi Fan Tutte, but it's an Italian restaurant, and this is France. The menu did not seem exciting either.

Shopping is great. If you are there on a Saturday night, you won't believe the scene - everyone in town is out browsing.

Stu Dudley

I'm a huge fan of Toulouse - 60,000 students (2nd only to Paris) make his a very "young" city, very vibrant, and as headquarters of Airbus Industries it is a very confident, forward looking and European (in the grand supra-national sense) city.
I'd strongly recommend staying at L'Hotel des Beaux-Arts, 1 Quai Daurade, which is hard by the wonderful Pont Neuf and the sleepy, somnolent waters of the Garonne.

You can eat very well too at their Brasserie but their are dozens and dozens of decent restaurants in the centre of town.

Shopping? chi chi boutiques on Rue Croix-Baragnon running west towards the river from Place St-Etienne, Also try the pedestrianised Rue Baronie & Rue St-Rome. The main shopping street is the 1/2 km long Rue Alsace-Lorraine (Galleries Lafayette, FNAC, Kookai etc).

There's a great [nay -world renowned!]sculpture gallery (romanesque & medieval in the Musee des Augustines on the corner of Rue A-L and Rue Metz.

At Place St-Etienne you'll also find the bizarre Cathedral of the same name - my favourite in all of France - if only because it is so spectacularly a mismatch from different eras, as funds ebbed and flow so did the building and design work until now it makes absolutely no architectural sense at all... a complete and crazy gem.

Place du Capitole is the monumental (and that word is often used inappropriately but not in this instance) centre of Toulouse and is a wonderful place for a stroll and an icecream or coffee.

The bones of the philosopher St Thomas Aquinas lie under the altar of the ravishing church of Les Jacobins, with its exquisite vaulting and impossibly slim pillars - attached is a beautiful peaceful cloister.

I could go on but I won't except to say - you could easily spend both nights in this fantastic city, maybe with a trip out to Albi one day, or maybe just garage the car and wind down in this most quintessentially southern and cosmopolitan of cities.

Dr D.

cpaaris does not say whether he or she does or does not like big cities.

I am delighted to find out how much there is to see in Toulouse and no doubt will sample it one day.

But other than Paris I tend to avoid big cities, esp when travelling by car.

We had to circumnavigate Toulouse this autumn when heading toward the Gers. My reaction (I admit we were only seeing the city's periphery) was "No way I'm going in THERE!

Huge, modern city, choked with traffic even outside rush hours....Not my/our thing.

Whereas Albi -- what a civilized little gem!

(But as for a 630 am departure -- the airport is, alas, on the west side of the city and Albi on the east)

BTW: We stayed just east of Toulouse at the Chateau de Lachadenede. A lovely experience of "la vie de chateau" with all that implies: deft and elegant hosts; tranquillity; huge rooms; rickety family furniture; and a bathroom most kindly described as "spartiate" i.e. Spartan.

Thanks for the replies. I don't mind big cities although driving and trying to find our way around new ones can be alittle stressful. We will drop off the car...probably at the train station, hopefully dropping off our suitcases at the hotel before. I am sure I will have some shopping to do since my family will expect some presents. It sounds like I will find plenty of shops. I also love sculpture so the Musee des Augustines sounds great. How is the other church, La Basilica of Saint-Sernin? I think 2 nights there is probably better because we won't have to rush around as much.