You’ve maybe seen the high end cosmetic stores in shopping malls in Canada named “L’Occitane en Provence”. It’s actually company head quartered in Luxembourg. But the Occitanie or Occitania region is an amalgamation of the former districts of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi Pyrenees (read more in Wikipedia). The name is derived from the language of “oc” (Languedoc) which is a dialect related to Catalan. The Catalan language extends through provinces along the Mediterranean coast from the French border to Valencia. It also includes Barcelona and along the Pyrenees.
The people of these areas have resisted being subsumed by the dominant language groups of French and Spanish while borrowing from each as well. It makes for interesting street name signs (often trilingual) which use letters not used in the English alphabet.
We arrived in France with a familiar welcome at CDG (and by familiar I mean a long ride between terminals) in enough time to get our connecting flight to Toulouse. We got in at about 4:00 PM, caught the city Aiporter bus to Jeanne d’Arc, just in time to find shops and restaurants opening up after the mid-day break.
Toulouse is often called the pink or rose city. We saw all the red brick buildings and tiled roofs as we were coming in for a landing. We later learned that there was a devastating fire in 1473 that burnt huge tracts of the city prompting city officials to decree all new buildings must be made of brick, thus the rose city.
Our hotel was only a short walk from the Jeanne d’Arc bus stop, easy to find, a typical small European hotel. It was time to try out the junior high school French. I announced ourselves and was greeted back in English. Very friendly and willing to suffer our attempts to dredge up decades old buried words from memory. We checked in, then checked out the street scene.
Too early for dinner, but a good time for a glass of white wine and some snacks after a long flight from Calgary. Watching people and walking along the streets of the old centre you can’t help notice how many people are out and about. It is not a car free city centre, but there is definitely more pedestrian and cycling traffic than you’d see in any Canadian city. And here in Toulouse, we loved how there were also spaces for little kids.
What first struck me here was just how comfortable it felt. A lot of times in big cities you feel a little apprehensive, a little intimidated, but Toulouse felt OK. A lot of people were dressed nicely, we weren’t hassled by beggars, there was a large mix of the human race and, probably because of all the foot traffic and open air restaurants, it felt a little festival like. We found out the next day a wine and food festival was taking place a few streets away. We spent 4 nights in Toulouse and came back again after our trip for our last night.
Toulouse is a great place to explore if your enjoy walking about and just absorbing the vibe. It has been continuously occupied since the 3rd century BC and part of the Roman empire since 106 BC. Today Toulouse is a world centre for aerospace manufacturing and science. It is the managing headquarters for the Airbus Industries and has a long history of air and space innovations and technologies. Lots of university students and well paid jobs. But we never learned that from a tour of Airbus. We got all the info from Alex, our foodie walking tour guide. It just goes to show you how using private guides opens up more routes to discovery than just the brochure promise.
Toulouse is an ideal place to take day trips to surrounding sights. We did a day trip to Carcassone, which was recommended by our friend Geraldine, born in France, now living in Ecuador. The attraction is a huge fortress and castle on a hill with impressive ramparts where you can walk around the entire complex.
Upon arrival by bus in Carcassone we had to walk through the “new” town to the progressively older town across the canal bridge. It was a leisurely day but upon reaching the fortress site, it was a steady climb to the top. There are shops and cafe’s in the old village now which surround the enclosure. We escaped a short rain shower inside one, had a coffee and some delicious snacks.
Two millennia of history are packed into this UNESCO-listed citadel: 52 towers, a labyrinth of passageways, the formidable Château Comtal and rampart walks with views across the Aude Valley. You need a few hours and there’s a lot to learn about why and how these fortress castles were state of the art defense systems. This one has been used in countless movies and forms what a lot of us think of as “castles.”
Our next sojourn took us to Narbonne. Like me, you may have never heard of Narbonne, but the location is not exactly undiscovered. By any standards, Narbonne is ancient and has many stories. It was one of the very first colonies in the region started by the Romans back in the first century BCE.
Today, people in France and Spain people come here to enjoy the public beaches and the resort town feel that is family friendly and not as glam as the Riviera. I was curious to see it after meeting Yves Quesada from the Chateau L’Hospitalet at a tourism conference a few years ago. He was assessing the market for their property with Canadian guests, knowing our penchant for winter vacation respites.
We enjoyed visiting the markets and the walks along the Canal de la Robine, thinking of what it would be like to have a little floating peniche home, as some people do. I think I could spend a winter here.
Narbonne is on the train line about 2 hours from Barcelona and an hour and a quarter from Toulouse. The region going west heads into the Pyrenees and you can take many weeks exploring the mountain villages, join a pilgrimage route to Lourdes or the French Camino to Santiago de Compostela, or find your way to the beaches of Biarritz,and the Cantabrian coast of Spain in the land of the Basque speaking people.
It’s also easy to move along to other Mediterranean towns like Sete, where we joined up with the CroisiEurope canal tour. Interestingly, we met a couple on that trip who were trying the canal experience with the intent of buying a barge and starting a whole new life on European canals.
Read more about other parts of this trip on the post Waterways of Southern France.
Up Coming Trip Ideas: Provence
Provence borders Occitanie and we plan to explore Provence more thoroughly on another trip, but I found this lovely French guest house to stay in. (Contact us if this appeals to your inner Peter Mayle.) There are a number of similar types of options for seeing and tasting your way around the region.
We support rail touring throughout Europe as well as coach tours, river and canal cruises, small group and self guided walking and cycling tours.
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