Tuluzo

Revenante

Kiam oni vizitas lokon por dua fojo, ĉiam bonas vidi ĝin per malsamaj okuloj. En denova vizito al la franca urbo Tuluzo lastatempe, mi havis okazon por fari tion – ja uzante tre malsamajn okulojn.

Tuluzo

Returning

When revisiting a place, it’s always good to see it through different eyes. On a repeat visit to the French city of Toulouse recently, I had the chance to do just that – using very different eyes indeed.

Sur le pont?

Avignon. One of those famous places whose name rings a bell – though if you’re like me, you’ll not be able to recall quite why. At least until you go there. Ah yes, the famous international arts festival. Ah yes, the pont d’Avignon, on which we danced, on which we danced. Ah yes, the papal…

The liberation of Millau

I blogged in my previous post about the Millau viaduct, and whether I thought it was worthy of “world wonder” status. My conclusion was less enthusiastic than most of my fellow travel companions.  However, I think the real strength of the bridge lies not in its specific merits as a bridge but in the effect it…

Millau viaduct – a wonder?

The second potential world wonder candidate we visited on our trip after Carcassonne was Millau viaduct, and in this post I fulfil Niall’s request to share my thoughts on this second candidate too.  For background, here are Niall’s own preview and review. In a few punchy sentences, though, Millau viaduct can be introduced as the tallest…

Well, Albi…

The best thing about travel is when something pops up to give you a pleasant surprise. In the case of our road trip through southern France it was the beautiful city and cathedral of Albi.  Recommended as a good stop-off on our journey, we spent three or four hours there and were hugely impressed by…

Tour de Force

After the fun of Carcassonne came the fun of Pau.  A nice enough place to visit in its own right (and family home to our travel companion Claire), the southwestern city of Pau also hosted the Tour de France while we were in town.  I’m not much of a fan of the sport as a…

Carcassonne Old City: a review

The French roadtrip revolved around three potential wonders on Niall’s candidate list.  In the end we only saw two of the three – Carcasonne Old City and Millau viaduct.  There wasn’t time or energy in the end for the papal palace at Avignon this time, but we did stumble across somewhere quite impressive that Niall…

Carcassonne and the fireworks

Our European trip’s first stop after Toulouse was Carcassonne.  Our main reason for visiting this beautiful French town – or more specifically its historic old walled city – was to tick it off Niall’s world wonder list, and my comments purely on the old city as a wonder will follow in a subsequent post. In…

Starting Toulouse

Our European adventure was effectively two different holidays in one.  Part two, which I’ll cover in later posts, was a trip Nicole and I took to Austria. The first half, though, was a road trip with a group of good friends from Aberdeen.  Our main purpose was piggybacking on Niall‘s visits to three south of…

Flying by train

Our three week rail journey through Europe began with a twenty-four hour trip from Inverness to Toulouse.  It could not have presented a starker contrast between the antiquated rail system in Britain and the superb high-speed rail network of mainland Europe. Our sleeper from Inverness to London was a cramped, clunky and slow old beast,…

Annecy and Geneva

I’ve begun uploading photos from our time in beautiful France and neutral Switzerland.  We’ve been staying with friends in Annecy, a lovely medieval town in Haute-Savoie, and have also been to Geneva for the day. I’ll write more soon, but keep your eye on the evolving photo set in the meantime.  

The waiting game

Nicole and I are heading off to France in September.  It’ll be a chance to catch up with a few friends we have over there, and while we both really like the country I’ve not seen too much of it and my French could do with some significant practice. We’ve decided we’re going overland, which…