Surprises in Toulouse

I thought after a long, long break, I ought to get back to hunting for photos.  I was very surprised to find there are now two versions so I've hastily added in another surprise, one of several that I found in Toulouse in the south of France.

This first is a double surprise - it isn't a picture of Toulouse but of Montpellier.  My surprise was that the Christmas lights in Montpellier were more striking than the lights in Toulouse (see my previous post).  Toulouse is much the bigger city so I was expecting more or maybe expecting too much.

My next surprise was that the beautiful Chapelle des Carmélites  is used for exhibitions like this one about Vietnam:

The boards displaying admittedly interesting information really spoilt the feel of the place for me, not to mention making taking photos very difficult.  The walls and ceiling are covered in wonderful 17th and 18th century frescoes.  This is all that remains of the convent, the rest having been destroyed during the French Revolution.

The next surprise was at the Basilica of St Sernin which is one of the important stops for pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela.  Mildly surprised to find it's built of red brick but more surprised to find ...

... the building completely surrounded by a flea market where you could probably buy, I think, absolutely anything at all.

My final surprise came at the Canal du Midi.

Here I was surprised by the trees.  Bearing in mind that this was taken in mid-December, I was surprised how many leaves were still on the trees.  Presumably it's down to the fact that it has been an unusually mild autumn and winter.

In truth there were many more surprises in Toulouse (and many more lights in Montpelier) but this is long enough now.  Happy hunting to all!

Toulouse had a Christmas market too

And as you can see, the stalls were the same again.  It was much, much busier.  Toulouse as a whole was much, much busier than Montpellier but I suppose it's to be expected in the fourth largest city in France after Paris, Marseille and Lyon. 

It was in the Place de la Capitole, a huge open expanse opposite the Capitole, the town hall.

I arrived just as the sun was setting and lighting up the Capitole with the last rays.  There is a passage through the Capitole building which was being used to display scenes from a fairground or circus, perhaps from the 19th century.

I couldn't quite work out what they were for because they weren't really in the Christmas spirit.  So true to life as to be vaguely unsettling.  The words on what I suppose is a caravan are, "Montreur d'animaux savants", "Exhibitor of animals".

By the time I'd finished looking at the spooky sideshows (with sound effects) the lights were starting to come on outside.

Most of the stalls seemed to be food-related, or at least those were the ones I noticed.  I must have been feeling hungry by this time.