Tuesday 19thMay. Prater, Eurovision, concert at Palais Auersperg. This morning I examined my Vienna tourist map to see if there was anything else that caught my eye as a ‘not to be missed’ location. I spotted The Prater, with its historic giant wheel, so headed off there by tram and metro. The Prater is a big amusement park, and garden park, with a number of very historic rides and amusements. I took a ride on the Wiener Riesenrad, the most famous, and something you may remember from the James Bond film The Living Daylights, Timothy Dalton’s first Bond film, 1987 (according to my research). It was an impressive spectacle and ride. After lunch I headed off to the matinee performance of the Eurovision Song Contest. They advised getting there 45 minutes before the pre-show, which started ... read more

Saturday 16thMay. Travel from Toulouse to Vienna, via London. I left the house early in case of public transport strikes or other problems, but had a seamless trip via bus, metro and tram to the airport, with scarcely a wait at transfer points. So I ended up at the airport nearly an hour before check-in opened! Half-empty flight to London was comfortable, full flight from London not as good. I had booked an apartment in Vienna to avoid the crowded hotels and restaurants. With Eurovision on, the whole city is full of people. The apartment is pretty quiet, with little street noise, but noise from the apartment above is intrusive. Sunday 17th May. I did a day-trip by train to the Schneebergbahn, a cog railway that climbs from Puchberg in the valley up the Schneeberg, to ... read more

Sunday 10th May. I had learned during the week that there is a Mass in English on Sunday at the church of Notre Dame du Taur. This church is said to be at the exact spot where the Romans stopped dragging the martyr St Saturnin (now St Sernin) to death through the streets of Toulouse behind a bull, though his remains lie in the nearby Cathedral (previously mentioned). This was in the 4thCentury. There were about 40 people at the Mass. I had been told not to miss Carcassonne, which has a huge fortified old city on a hill, near the modern city. Its less than an hour by train from Toulouse, so I headed to the railway station after Mass. The train I had intended to travel on was an intercity train, non-stop to Carcassonne, ... read more

Sunday 3rdMay. Today my host family took all of us students residing with them for a day trip to Madiran, a small village about two and a half hours from here, where Nelly (our host) and her two sisters own a house (formerly a school) which their grandparents owned, and which they are renovating. The drive, though long, was interesting, as one had views across to the amazing snowcapped Pyrénées, and we also passed through a number of very old villages (villages and towns all around this area were originally Roman), boasting medieval churches, donjons and other buildings. We also stopped at a Sunday market in one village, and at another village having a massive street sale. After our picnic lunch at the house, Nelly’s sister Annie took us on a walking tour of Madiran village, ... read more

Weds 29th April. Today was my flight from Dublin to Toulouse. Usual airport things – long queue to check in, plus the flight was half an hour late. In Toulouse, a group of us was waiting for the airport-city shuttle bus, only to find out that due to a strike they were not running. The alternative was the tram and then the metro, not too inconvenient but somewhat crowded on the metro, difficult with luggage. On first impression, Toulouse is pretty interesting. The centre of the city has been extensively pedestrianised, and the streetscape is very pleasant, blending wide boulevards with narrow lanes. The rows of apartments have that very French style, there are many shops. There is a huge number of young people around, many students all over the place. The overall impression is of ... read more