A taste of La ville rose
A France unplanned: Part eight
Notes for this post were originally written in September 2023, as part of the France unplanned series.
A well-planned trip would have had me travelling in a loop instead of zigzagging and backtracking to return to L’Occitanie after Provence. Alas, I was going through Montpellier once more to get to Toulouse, detouring to Béziers for a look-see.
Pass
Béziers and I did not click. The road towards the city prefaced the vibe, although I didn’t pick up on that in time. Trucks weaving in and out of passing lanes, cars backed up along narrow streets courtesy of someone stopping by to unload something or simply chat with a pedestrian, and parking instructions that may as well have been hieroglyphs.
I walked around the core, expecting liveliness along the alleys and side streets. The area was deserted. Some restaurants had signs informing visitors that they were closed for the summer holidays, and a few shops didn’t adhere to the advertised hours (the Mediterranean in me understands).
I headed to more populated areas after a verbal smackdown with an unsettling sort who spotted a tourist and thought he’d try his luck with a scam. Walking down the rue Paul-Riquet was a visual treat: the open sidewalk cafes were busy and gave a proper French atmosphere to the town square, and the historic buildings lining up the street, such as Le Mairie and the theatre named after Riquet, placed me back in France, and Les Halles (the open marketplace) had numerous stalls to delight the eyes and the nose. But the character of the city and its spirit eluded me; whatever magical hand moved me across Southern France thus far seemed to take the day off. With no serendipitous discoveries or signs pointing me anywhere specific, I decided to wrap up the stopover after a quick lunch and make my way to the Pink City.
Pink
Toulouse would be different for one reason: The purpose of the visit was to rekindle a childhood friendship. The last time I saw J was 24 years ago. We were teenagers with radically different lives then, unrelated to our current trajectories. Upheaval, tragedy, loss, migration, and rebirth all took place at that time.
We spent the days reconnecting, catching up, crying, and piecing together the missing parts of our stories as we travelled back and forth in time to fill the gaps. Over freshly-delivered croissants and chocolatines, J threw together an itinerary for an express tour to see the city and taste the local culinary offerings.
The subway announcements for the stops were delivered in French and Occitan. I had erroneously thought the latter an almost-dead language, but with 1.6 million speakers and evident signs of its use on information sheets and street names, it is thankfully very much alive. Like the Camargue with their Crois camarguaise, L’Occitanie also had its own distinct cross, emblazoned atop doorways, in steel plaques on the ground and city steps, fashioned as stone mosaics, and tattooed on the biceps and calves of proud Toulousians.
Once we emerged from the underground, La ville rose was painted right before me. Pink was omnipresent: the colour of the shadows cast, in the outlines of treetops, and reflected in puddles and windows. This was the effect of building the city using the same pink-hued brick.
Seen from above, Toulouse appeared to live through a permanent sunset. Despite its size, it had a small and intimate city feel, where endless streets opened onto boulevards and alleyways revealing quartier after quartier, without the menacing shadows of highrises boxing everything in and traffic playing the central feature.
Pleasure
At the Marché Victor Hugo, we eyed what was on offer to know how to plan dinner for that night. After a few hours of sightseeing, returned to the Marché to experience a traditional Toulousian comfort dish: the cassoulet, comprised of beans in a rich broth with duck leg, cured pork belly, shanks, and Toulousian sausage. None of those were ingredients I usually stocked in my pantry, but cooked this way, I could see myself making a bowl in the depths of our cold winters. Between spoonfuls, I got a gastronomic history of the area and the prominence of duck and its related products in their dishes.
J led the way as we crisscrossed across the central area, walking past Jardin Pierre Goudouli and window shopping as we passed inviting boutiques and fine goods stores. Our endpoint was the Saint-Cyprien quartier, which we eventually reached following a stroll and a sit-down along the Quai Lucien Lombard before reaching L’hôpital de La Grave - one of Toulouse’s most notable landmarks.
At no point on this trip or in my imagination did I think that I would find myself standing in the middle of a bustling town square, eating a penis-shaped waffle that was dripping chocolate on my dress. At J’s insistence, we were at La quequetterie, a French chain carrying the slogan “keep your mouth wide open” that sold phallic and labial-shaped waffles (quequettes and foufounes in French). Marketing gimmicks aside, the product was beyond reproach: moist, spongy, and just the right size to wrap one’s hands around.
Back at the Marché, we treated ourselves to a sampling at Betty, the popular cheese shop. The assistant wrapped a few selections that, in her view, best represented France. “Don’t open that in the subway unless you want to piss everybody off,” warned J pointing to the wrapped Maroilles.
For a treasure of Toulouse to take home, we stopped at Maison Penchenat for some foie gras, spreads, and locally favoured tapenades. The shop was a gourmand’s dream: wall-to-wall jars of fine French goods, dried mixes, confitures to accompany every imaginable cheese, and an astonishing selection of foie. Equally endearing was the delightful and chatty owner, who was impressively educated on Canada’s import regulations. He artfully packed up my purchases in airline-approved freezer bags and threw in a few spreads for good measure. “The next time you visit France, you should come straight to Toulouse. It’s the best part, you don’t have to bother with the rest,” he shared, then turned his phone my way to show the availability of direct flights from Montreal to Toulouse.
Plans
J’s express tour whetted my desire to spend more time in this charming city. The friendliness of the locals we’ve met (once they’ve gotten over the insult of my three-day visit), excellent year-round weather, lovely scenery, ease of transport, and the free-flowing vibe of the region endeared this pocket of France to me. Clearly, there was also a strong personal element at play, with J and her young family giving the city a lived depth that I couldn’t experience elsewhere as a passing traveller.
And there it was, the last stop in my unplanned journey before boarding the train back to Paris.
Read the full France series:
Now I want to go to Toulouse. Maybe if I go to Plum Village next summer? But I don't like visiting places where I don't have friends who live there to guide me into the more intimate aspects of place. That penis waffle was definitely larger and more graphic than what I had imagined.