France by Bicycle | PART 16: INTO TOULOUSE

Leaving Valence d’Agen, we ride through gorgeous countryside to the town of Moissac, checking out the world famous abby known for it’s Romanesque (and to be honest, rather creepy) Romanesque artwork. Then it’s across the Pont-Canal du Cacor, another long and beautiful aqueduct, and after a short day, spend the evening in Castelsarrasin before continuing on to Toulouse which, we discover, is a vibrant, beautiful city. We find a lovely hotel right on the banks of the Canal du Midi, our route out of town, and explore the city by night, thoroughly enjoying what is, to this point, the largest city of our entire trip.

Music:

Accordion and Glockenspiel Comedy – JK Productions
Pond Five
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Wake Up With Me – David Celeste
Epidemic Sound

Godsend – Johannes Bornlof
Epidemic Sound

Right Size For Me – Headlund
Epidemic Sound

Our French Cafe – Jimmy Fontanez/Media Right Productions
YouTube-AudioLibrary

Lonely No More – Leimoti
Epidemic Sound

Let Me Introduce Myself – Rune Dale
Epidemic Sound

Diffused Aura – Dream Cave
Epidemic Sound

If These Trees Could Talk – Cristophe Gorman
Epidemic Sound

well we made it to Toulouse back into the city yeah in a little while yeah a few days [Music] thank you [Music] it’s a gorgeous morning out here on the canal waiting for a moment where I can saddle on up to Juliana we can give her a good morning in the meantime we’ll just do a little bit of picturesque viewing morning baby good morning nice couple rest days the problem is is that I don’t mean to be a complainer but I’m gonna be because that mattress was horrible yeah I got a crick in my neck and I’ve got a sore back so even though my muscles are rested my neck and back ache so it’s gonna be a rainy day today again but we decided to try to uh fit a little ride into the window where there isn’t going to be much rain and get to another location but the hopes of a better mattress and a another comfortable room so we can get a good night’s sleep finish recovering I’m glad we’re riding today it’s cool and it’s chilly but the air is very nice with all the rain that just cleaned everything everything smells so good and green yeah it does and look how pretty it is out here just gorgeous but it was a little daunting last night hearing the rain on the roof we’re at the top floor sorry if I’m cramming you I just don’t want to go under the drink but yeah the rain was just really beaten down we were like oh God it’s what it’s supposed to be like today and it was like an attic apartment so it was very small with you know slanted ceiling and four roll and being so tall he kept bumping his head yeah but it was born last night it was coming down so hard I was thinking geez I hope we don’t have to ride in that tomorrow our weather app shows a couple hour window so we should be uh drying will get a new place and uh then we’ll be within Striking Distance of Toulouse so moving ahead slowly but surely and working through this uh big weather pattern yeah last night as we do we had the best meal that we’ve had since we’ve France let’s go together but it was the best food we’ve had it was amazing food out here incredible yeah this has been the culinary tour for sure I was never a huge huge fan of French food per se but now I am I love it I mean I love everything from the escargot to the rabbit the Canard is amazing the lamb was excellent I mean it’s just it’s just remarkable okay I’m gonna get both hands on the wheel Happy Trails Happy Trails good morning [Music] love that light and it does look a little more golden than it did yesterday it’s hard to express how gratifying it is to be outside every day one with nature feeling the gradual but distinct changing of the seasons day by day it’s good for the soul and how gorgeous is this the Canal Trail continued to amaze us with its Serenity and gentle Beauty as we rode through an increasingly autumnal landscape and this morning we passed many others all enjoying the same bucolic Countryside a lot of Walkers out this morning surprising how many people actually hiked this path we’ve been noticing many people with backpacks obviously through hikers it’s a real favor [Music] dad tell a lot of graffiti here in France a lot of graffiti so many people live in these little boats on the river on the canal interesting light let’s look at this with all the plants and herbs looks homey there are times on a bike tour when you might feel challenged when you’re hungry or weary or you just wish for the day to be over but overwhelmingly you have times like this morning when the rain is given everything a refresh the whole world seems illuminated and you couldn’t imagine anything more perfect than right here right now there’s the river through those trees the river garon continues on we’ve got the canal over here and then the river really broad through this point well probably by the end of tomorrow we’ll be at the end of the canal de gron and we’ll begin the midi probably won’t be a lot different but it’ll be a change nevertheless and it’ll be generally downhill towards the Mediterranean [Music] thank you [Music] you want to check out the town since we’ve got such a short ride [Music] foreign [Music] we decided to do a little exploring and found ourselves drawn to an ancient Church on the far side of town I checked this place out is that okay this place turned out to be the song Pierre ABI of mwasek some of whose sculptures are considered to be major masterpieces of Romanesque art [Music] thank you [Music] we always find a walk through these old churches to be humbling in spiritual experiences even if some of the sculptures Inspire more curiosity and horror than reverence [Music] foreign [Music] Maybe short ride today trying to beat the rain but we can kind of feel it coming get little drops sky looks very heavy yeah we should have a good solid afternoon of measurable rain I think good for France they need us they need the moisture correct where are we do you remember the town the aqueduct outside of moosec goes over the garon river we’re going to be Crossing it here in just a minute outside the town We Came Upon another of the canal dugarone’s engineering gems the Pont Canal de kakor while not as long as the one we crossed yesterday at a gen it’s still one of the longest Canal bridges in all of France and a beautiful piece of engineering art surface feels a little rough for riding unless you ride right next to the canal which I ain’t gonna do boy look at those clouds it’s a great day beautiful beautiful place this is it’s uh some Aqueduct over more socks area in the canal we’ve been lucky enough to cross over several of these and they’re just Marvels just fabulous examples of kind of an earlier engineering style and you know one of the first things that people wanted to figure out how to do is to move water where they wanted it these aqueducts there’s a lot of them all through Europe it’s awesome the rain is starting up a little soft rain it’s cold cold rain a few little gripples on the canal just got about two more miles to go love days like this especially here in Europe I just associate gray cloudy rainy weather with Europe so under Southern Skies we reached Castle sarasa a small and somewhat dismal City where we spent the night [Music] in the morning we discovered the most delightful belangerie just across the street from our stay and we loaded up on carbs and coffee okay okay we cross the bridge to the left [Music] the room for both of us well good morning baby good morning baby it’s sunny morning for a change it’s been kind of cloudy and rainy for the last couple of few three days I guess I don’t know something like that had a uh decent night in Castle sarason which was a bit of a gloomy town I thought it was a bit Macabre we got a decent uh Moroccan meal last night very good actually after a hard search for a restaurant nothing open everything closed yeah yeah tip of this Moroccan place which didn’t seem to have any customers except for us it was very weird and quiet but excellent meal attention stayed in an apartment last night in kind of an apartment block you know again a little bit gloomy on the gloomy side when you look outside but get some more truffle cheese which is one of my favorites yes we secured a lunch for today with cheese and meat and and we got a great breakfast and coffee this morning at a boulangerie right across from our apartment then we we’ve waited out the storm so the rain is over things are dried off and we’ve got uh some 35 miles into Toulouse biggest town we’ve been in since Bordeaux so we got a nice clear day ahead of us cool feels good though it feels great it feels Perfect all right let’s go [Music] thank you [Music] you know you just gotta love these overhanging trees you know it’s just so pretty so gorgeous weight distribution makes all the difference Juliana’s noticing a little bit of a funky Ride in her front end readjusting the weight in the front bags you got to keep kind of working on that stuff it’s easy to slide what a pretty morning just all clean and pretty all the leaves have Dew on them and the grass is all dewy and everything’s shiny and clean and bright yeah really really nice yeah it feels better yeah just yeah you know just a little bit of weight in balance it really makes a difference on the roll thank you it seems like this is a really active Canal you know there’s a lot of locks and there’s a lot of boat traffic the more cells we get the more I see and the nicer the mountains get too while you come into these areas with a lot of root buckles I call them roots of the trees are just kind of cracked through the pavement and really watch it with all these bags [Music] interesting Contraption here on the canal this thing is on wheels as one can tell and straddles the canal or straddles this part of the canal kind of on little Runners concrete runners it really can’t go any farther because there’s those bridges there and what’s the purpose of it hmm okay here’s an answer so it kind of tows the boat it uh holds onto the boat and it pulls it along somehow very interesting interesting colors too it’s called a water slope one of two ever built no longer in operation it was designed to eliminate the need for several locks thank you [Music] along this part of the canal the views were more open with broad Vistas showing off the Lush French landscape [Music] foreign [Music] s are the most Serene kind of riding just gorgeous smooth path and just [Music] so pretty all the winter [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you as we made our way Southeast we could feel the subtle shifts in the landscape in the Flora and in The Villages along the way [Music] soon we could feel the draw of the city of Toulouse pulling us in this would be our largest city yet on the tour fourth most populous in France after Paris Marseille and Lyon it’s an old city originating as a Roman Outpost in the 2nd Century BC [Music] to loose heading for a bike store back into the city yeah in a little while a few days already yeah I think it’ll be a nice night yeah I think so I think if Toulouse as being kind of a cool City I’ve heard good things about it yeah and I think we’re pretty close to signs of this so we’ll be able to maybe check it out a little bit all right on to the bike stop take care love you all bye it may sound crazy to some but I love riding through these cities with their chaotic energy and with the customary French bike path system it was easy for us to carve our way through the craziness and find the bike shop which proved to be by the way of no help and then we found our hotel [Music] boys I think we’re in the best district from signs of a lot of prostitutes on the corners and such but you know when you’re picking a hotel it’s kind of hard to tell so but I’m sure it’s got some wonderful qualities to it we’ve yet to discover we’re going to check in and see what we can find it’s always an adventure our hotel which although it seemed at first to be a bit seedy was clean and comfortable and run by the kindest hosts here’s our room in Toulouse you know a really pretty room with a great balcony looking down over I think that’s the canal do midi and how we’re going to get out of town tomorrow nice and then we headed out into the city to see what we could see Toulouse turned out to be a vibrant attractive City we thoroughly enjoyed our stay [Music] [Music] bonjour [Music]