Une compagnie du réseau Air France KLM
Flight Toulouse
Meteo Toulouse
Today
21.2°F
Tomorrow
23°F
The day after tomorrow
21.2°FBook now
* these are required fields
Slide show
Nearby Cities
Toulouse is a confident city.
France's fourth-largest metropolis not only has a rich architectural heritage, but the intellectual verve that comes from being at the heart of Europe's aerospace industry and space programme. Add to this a vibrant student population and some high-profile modern art and it comes as no surprise that the Toulousains are feeling good about their town.
Toulouse, dubbed 'Ville Rose' because of its pink buildings, sits astride the Garonne river and the historic Canal du Midi, midway between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. The heart of the town is the vast, arcaded place du Capitole, where the impressive, grandiose Capitole building forms the seat of local government.
The city's finest building is the Basilique St-Sernin, built over the course of three centuries. Romanesque, with a wedding-cake spire, it was once a stop for pilgrims and so over time it accumulated an array of holy relics, most of which are on display.
South-west of the basilica is medieval Toulouse, which is dotted with a rich assortment of historic churches.
The Hôtel de Bernuy, on rue Gambetta, and the Hôtel d'Assézat are both lovely 15th-century merchants' houses; the latter contains gems by Monet, Matisse, Pissarro and Bonnard.
Across the Pont Neuf, modern art has a stylish home in Les Abattoirs. The show-stopper here is Picasso's La Dépouille du Minotaure, a stage curtain from 1936. Revolving exhibitions of Pharaonic and Chinese artefacts take place all summer at the Musée Georges Labit.
Three miles from the centre, the enormous Cité de l'Espace is an impressive celebration of the city's position at the centre of the European Space Programme. 2005 saw the unveiling of 'Astralea', featuring a state-of-the-art planetarium and a sleek, modern cinema complex with a huge screen as well as interactive exhibits and life-sized replicas of Ariane 5 and the Mir space station.
Sightseeing :
- The Capitole, Place du Capitole and the Town Hall
- Saint-Sernin Basilica
- The Musée des Augustins (fine arts museum)
- The Cloister of the Jacobins and the Palmier (Church ceiling)
- The Cité de l'Espace
- The Canal du Midi, listed as a UNESCO world heritage site
- The Musée Saint-Raymond (antiquities museum)
- Les Abattoirs (modern art museum)
- The Assézat mansion, site of the Bemberg Foundation (paintings from the Renaissance to the early 20th century) and the Bernuy mansion
- Saint-Etienne Cathedral
- The Chapel of the Carmelites
-The Musée Paul-Dupuy (decorative arts)
- The Musée Georges Labit (Asian art)
- The banks of the Garonne:
- Local specialities: cassoulet, duck magret, truffles
Nos avions
