Toulouse, Full of Surprises

It’s Saturday, August 13, and the Dalai Lama, is speaking in Toulouse today. Mary and I arrived in Toulouse on April 13. Doesn’t that make the three of us somewhat connected? Well, probably not, but it shows that lots of different people think Toulouse and the DL are both pretty wonderful.

I’ve mentioned before how our backpacks make us very wide. I seem to have no conception of how big the “add-on” is. Toulouse is three long train-rides from Tours, giving lots of opportunity for my backpack and me to innocently bludgeon our way through crowds. Just after boarding one train, I looked around to check where Mary went, and found her sprawled across some steps leading to the upper level of seats, with a frail little old lady telling her how sorry she was and trying to pull her up.

The fault was, of course, all mine. Mary’s glare made that clear. I felt huge and clumsy, so why couldn’t I stop laughing?

Toulouse, though far from the Atlantic, straddles the wide and deep Garonne river. There’s a lot of commercial shipping now, but during WW II, German U-boats came all the way up the river to reach the interior. That was odd to think about, seeing the city and the river so peaceful and welcoming. Waterways are historic invitations to invasion.

The Garden hotel in Toulouse was in a so-so district a metro ride from the center of town, but was the quietest so far and I slept really well. The staff was helpful and friendly, and the room spacious. The patio is filled with flowers and a huge bulbous overspreading pine tree.

After settling in, we left the hotel at 1810 (the unambiguous way they say “p.m.” here, so it was 6:10 p.m.), took the metro and stumbled upon the spectacular Museum of Augustins in an old monastery. It’s a big old brick building undergoing renovation (continually), so there were barriers up around most of the exterior to the point that we thought it was closed as we walked around it. Nope. On the far side was the entry. Not expecting much, we entered.

Down some steps, we turned a corner and I about shouted in astonishment. Probably I did shout. We were in a courtyard, a small version of the Cloisters in NYC, with an enormous flowering pink peony. Glorious! To the left, going down the entire corridor, were dog gargoyles saved from some church. It was the first time I’d been able to see them so close up! You appreciate the skill and humor of the stone cutters. Displays in other rooms also showed small sculptures rescued from fading archways in ancient churches. I’ve posted some of the pictures for you to enjoy.

We spent an hour and a half racing up stairs and down, through glass doors into more rooms and ever more incredible displays. It’s astonishing how much detail the stonecutters put into small sculptures that no-one would ever notice, they were so far from the range of human sight.

Not only was there a lot of humor, but also expressive emotions. By being confined to a tiny space, the sculptors excelled perhaps because they had to be more creative and innovative.

Mary was especially taken by the larger statues (2 ft high at most) of saints that had been in the curve of an arch. Their necks and heads leaned to one side as if they were desperate need of chiropractic help.

In one long corridor was an exhibit of excellent calligraphy carved in stone in the 13^th Century. It was too dark to get a good picture. I should have tried, just like I should have photographed the poignant statue of the Swiss coming to the help of suffering France, and the painting of a mother lifting her baby up to be kissed by the imprisoned father who looks out of a small barred window.

There were sculpted heads of four fine men lined up fairly close together, so we had a beauty contest. The fierce-looking younger one with massive curls and huge romantic eyes lost out to a kinder, gentler older man. It might have been a different outcome if we’d seen them on our first trip, 50 years ago.

We went upstairs and were gobsmacked (love that Brit term) to find three huge rooms of eye-level to ceiling paintings, mostly from painters in and around Toulouse, or ones dealing with the history of the region.

Look at the handsome, serious young man. He’s a baron! Being noble, he didn’t have to take up painting, but he did – and he painted this self portrait! And the picture of the man with the modern semi-mohawk (I forget the exact term the kids use nowadays). Plus ca change – with men’s hair, from long curls to short Mohawks.

There was another of Christ at the wedding in Cana, with everyone in (then) modern dress. I wondered how that would go over now, if Christ was in a tuxedo. I’d love to see a good painter give it a try. Or maybe, in keeping with our times, a good photographer.

We finally left, reluctantly, a bit after eight o’clock, and were sent a couple of blocks away to Place St. Georges for dinner. The whole plaza was filled with outdoor eating, and tres cher (very expensive). After looking at some of the menus, we strolled down a side street to a small, deserted café which turned out to be a superb choice.

Our waiter was energetic, young, serious, and fast. He rushed back and forth between the kitchen and the tables, quite a distance (we had been joined by other diners following our lead). He was also short, compact, and cute, dressed in jeans and tennis shoes, but expert at his job. We were surprised to discover that this was only his second night there! We complimented him, of course, which pleased him so much he had the chef fix a special salad of just veggies for Mary. My own hot goat cheese salad (chevre chaud) was celestial.

After dinner, we saw that the plaza was still packed with diners at 10:00. I was exhausted. We took the metro back to the hotel and fell straight into bed, sleeping through till 7:00, a record for me.