April 19 Bordeaux to Toulouse

19 April 2018 Bordeaux to Toulouse

We had a wonderful day in Bordeaux yesterday, getting a European SIM card from an outfit called “Free,” picking up an adaptor for French electrical outlets — I was surprised to discover my Spanish one didn’t work—and touring pilgrim sites around this lovely city.   The weather was sunny, and a bit warm, and we logged 8.2 miles. Then, after dinner, we walked along the Garonne, adding perhaps another mile or two.  Hundreds of people of all ages, although mostly young ones, were picnicking in the parkland along the river.  We also purchased bus tickets to Toulouse, and this morning walked across the Garonne on the Pierre Bridge to catch the Ouibus to Toulouse, an uneventful 3-hour journey along a large highway.  Although I kept watching, and saw signs to Lectoure and Condom, places I walked through on the route from Le Puy in 2010, I couldn’t recognize where the Chemin crossed the highway.

We are settled into the Hotel Royal Wilson in the old center of Toulouse for the next two nights.  It sounds elegant, but is an older two-star hotel.

It will do.

We visited the tourist office, the pilgrims welcome office, where got information on the trail ahead, and two churches — the Basilica of St. Sernin, which had a beautiful series of posters with wonderful quotations about many aspects of pilgrimage, and the Convent Church of the Jacobins which holds the grave of St Thomas  Acquinas, which I vividly remembered visiting in 1998 or 1999, although I’d forgotten which church it was in.