Toulouse, France and the canal du midi

We left Andorra and went down in elevation to the city of Toulouse for 3 nights. The weather in the mountains wasn't forecasted to be very nice, so we changed from our original plans of being in the French Pyrenees to going into the city lower down.

We started our visit with a lovely run, as we were staying outside the city in a more residential area.

Then we caught the metro into the city and walked around exploring. We enjoyed the basilica, a beautiful church, and the old bridge (called pont neuf). We also found a really fun games store and a Harry Potter shop.

Then we went to the Hall of Machines, which was a really unique experience. This company has made some very creative machines. Some play music; others are huge and walk and move and breathe smoke!

The next day we rented bikes and rode the first section of the 'canal du midi'. This canal is 240km long from Toulouse to the Mediterranean sea and is as old as 1666. There are many locks along the way and barges travel up and down the river. A lovely recreational path runs along side most of it, so cycling over several days from Toulouse to the sea via Carcassonne is a popular thing.

We went to Carcassonne back in October, so we didn't need to go again. But we enjoyed the beautiful canal for a day trip. We rented bikes in two different ways: adults over 14 years old can rent bikes all over Toulouse very affordably, from something called VeloToulouse, for up to 24 hours. Then we rented a tandem bike for an adult and kid to share (and helmets for all) from a bike rental service called "le petit velo". They also do bike shuttles and support people renting and doing point to point trips along the canal, which seems like it would be really fun.

If you ever decide to rent a barge in the area - take note - some of the barges are very old and look like they might sink!!

One of the nicer looking barges

We stopped and watch 2 boats sink down in the lock

 

Teagan was pretty impressed with how far down the water level went in just a few minutes

On our way back from Toulouse to the Spanish border, we stopped near Narbonne to see if we could see any of the flamingoes that frequent the area. It was raining and we didn't see any flamingoes, so we just kept driving and went South in to Spain.

Merci, France! Au revoir!