Blogs from Toulouse, Midi-Pyrénées, France, Europe - page 2

Woooohoooo! Yes, we are in Toulouse! To recap so far, we flew into Heathrow 2 weeks ago now, then straight on to Glasgow, Scotland for a couple of days, mainly to visit Carol's relatives which was great! We also visited Dundee, Tayport and the Falkirk wheel while we were there. After that we headed down to London for a day and had the fasted whirlwind tour of the City on foot you could think of, but we managed to fit in Harrods,Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, and a few other spots before negotiating the Tube back to our Hotel in Kensington. The next morning found us at Heathrow bright and early for the flight to Paris. We arrived to fantastic weather and experienced our first French cuisine at a local restaurant, one of many we experienced during ... read more

Toulouse. The reason we are here! Well, after a VERY hot, largely sleepless night, Isabel and I are not feeling so thrilled about the heat. I am complaining now, despite being determined not to. We need to work out a system for shutters (close to block out noise from the road and light), windows (let in slightly cooler air but shutters need to be open for them to do that) and fan (strategically positioned to blow on both of us at the same time without being blasted in the face by hot air). It could be a very short stay if we don't work something out tonight! I know it's the worst heatwave in 80 years, but I'm feeling a little dumb today that I didn't choose somewhere to stay with air-conditioning as I really am ... read more

And so our journey draws to a close. In my remaining hours (I spent a good bit of time catching up on this blog) I will go wander the city, as it seems checking out Cite de l'Espace would take a full day (which I no longer have), and the Airbus tours require booking 48 hours in advance. With luck, tomorrow's forecasted thunderstorms will hold off until I get myself to the airport. Meanwhile, here's a start on explaining the routine I got into over the past 2 weeks. ... read more

Toulouse to Bayonne and the Pyrennees in southern France 12 to 13 August 2013 We had 30 kms north to drive to Toulouse in southern France. Toulouse is the 4th largest city in France with 400K people. Its fame is based on its aerospace industry: Concord, Airbus, and the Ariane space rocket originated here. Our visit was mainly focused around the Cite de l’Espace (the space museum) which was massive. We could have spent a whole day there. It was a mixture of the Canberra Questacon (everything was very interactive for the kids and educational on space issues) and the Washington Aeronautical Museum with its big range of space ships/rockets/robots etc. and a whole lot of information on space exploration. It was definitely well worth the visit at 25 Euros each. We also visited the very ... read more

Spain 15th October - 16th October It's our last day in Spain and we decide to take a drive north of Calpe to Moraira, a beautiful little town on the water with a lovely harbor. Thankfully, the town has ordinances in place to stop high rises being built. We really like this town! And immediately we find a restaurant for our prix-fixe lunch. We're waited on by a young English lad whose parents had moved to Spain when he was nine, and I think that if I were to move to Spain, then Moraira might be the place. The food was tasty, well presented and of course our mantra “if two is good, then three must be better” made us have entree, plat and dessert. We also explore Point Nau which appears to be a little ... read more