Last year when we were booking cheap flights to Malaga, we also found cheap flights to Toulouse in the same BA sale. As Tim used to live in Toulouse and still has friends there, taking advantage of those seemed like a no-brainer. Tim and I booked initially, then we were later joined by Matt, Alfie and Max. Matt and Alfie had already been to Toulouse with Tim once before in 2024, but it was going to be a completely new experience for Max.

The reason the flights were such good value was probably because the flight to Toulouse was departing at 06.00, making it the very first flight of the day out of Heathrow Terminal 3. We travelled down to the airport on Thursday evening, staying overnight at a nearby airport hotel, but even so we had to agree to meet up in the hotel lobby at 04.00 this morning, so that we had enough time to deposit the car at the airport parking and catch the bus to the airport.

It was a seriously early start, but at least being the first flight of the day meant that we were able to take off relatively on time by Heathrow standards and we were soon on our way towards Toulouse. We'd had time for a very quick initial breakfast in the lounge, but were soon served a second breakfast on the plane. 

It was a pretty quick flight - less than two hours overall - and so we had landed in Toulouse before 9am, local time. Because we'd been sitting towards the front of the plane we were first in the passport control queue and soon sitting on a bus, on our way towards central Toulouse.

It was an extremely sunny day in Toulouse, completely different to the wet and windy weather we'd been experiencing in the UK on Thursday.

The weather isn't forecast to be great for the entire trip - with some rain expected tomorrow in particular - but today we were definitely regretting the jumpers and coats we'd brought to be on the safe side! We were stuck carrying everything around with us until 4pm, when we'd be able to check into the AirBNBs that we'd booked. So that we didn't just spend the time loitering around Toulouse, Tim had pre-booked train tickets for us to the nearby town of Montauban. After a short walk of around 20 minutes or so, we were at the main train station in Toulouse ready to get on the train.

The train was a very old-fashioned intercity, split into compartments, but it turned out well because we got an entire compartment to ourselves. After a journey of around 30 minutes, we arrived in Montauban and started walking towards the old town.

It was a really beautiful place, with a huge old bridge across the river.

Once we got towards the middle of the bridge we had great views of the part of town we'd just walked from and the other, newer bridges across the river Tarn.

We could soon see the old town appearing on the other side of the river.

We found the local war memorial...

...and this impressive building, which was the church of St Jacques.

From there we wandered through the streets of the old town until we came to the main square, Place National.

This was a really pretty square, with a big reflective pool of water in the middle.

We stopped for a drink at one of the cafes in the square and ended up getting lunch there too.

It was so warm in the sun that it actually felt like there was a risk of getting sunburnt; an unexpected problem in March!

After lunch we walked around the old town so more until we located the cathedral.

This was an absolutely enormous building and very impressive.

The cathedral was set in a square with pretty gardens.

There were lots of flowers out already and even the magnolia was blooming.

It felt like we'd seen the main sights of Montauban by this point, so we headed back across the river towards the train station.

We had tickets for a specific train just after 3pm, so there was just time to fit in some ice-cream before it was time to board.

By the time we were back in the centre of Toulouse it was around 4pm and we were allowed to access the apartments we'd booked. Both are on the third floor of buildings - so quite a lot of staircases to climb to get to them - and once you arrive, you find they make creative use of space. The apartment Tim and I are staying in has a nice living area...

...but navigating the bedroom requires caution; the ceiling is rather low in places  

Once we'd checked in I was intending to have a brief 30-minute nap and then do the blog. That accidentally turned into more like a 2-hour nap, so by the time I'd woken up it was time to go out in search of dinner.  Toulouse was really busy in the evening, but eventually we found a restaurant in the main square where we could sit outside...

...and eat some amazing Italian food.

It's been a fun day, but a tiring one! Time to get some sleep before tomorrow's excursion to one of my favourite places in France - Carcassonne  

The plan for today was to visit Carcassonne, a town around 60 miles southeast of Toulouse. The weather was not forecast to be as good as it had been yesterday, and during the night Tim and I could definitely hear rain beating down on the skylight window of our bedroom. When we stepped outside around 09.30 this morning Toulouse did look a bit damp, but the day seemed like it had the potential to brighten up.

The journey to Carcassonne took a bit over an hour on a regional train. Soon we were stepping out of the station into the newer part of the town where we found a Carcassonne sign...

...and Matt even took a photo of us together  

From the station it's a walk of 15 or 20 minutes to get to the famous old town. We walked through some pretty gardens, complete with very large French flag...

...then found ourselves at a bridge over the river Aude, from where we had our first view of the medieval walled city.

And what a view it was!

We had actually intended to be walking across the older bridge you can see in the distance in this photo, so we needed to make our way in that direction.

Soon we had made it to the right part of town and could start the uphill walk towards the castle walls.

There was a fair bit of uphill, but it was definitely worth it.

Although it wasn't the sunniest of days, the walls still looked incredible.

The rain was just about holding off, though it did feel quite windy, as we started to explore.

The nice thing about being here on a not very sunny day in March was that the town wasn't full of tourists.

Carcassonne is beautiful but the town inside the walls is quite small, with narrow streets that get absolutely jam-packed with tourists at the busier times of the year.

In 2016 Tim and I stayed in a little apartment inside the city walls for a couple of nights and were able to walk around the walls in the early morning, before the hordes of tourists arrived.

This morning it felt like we were getting the same experience of walking around deserted walls, although it was closer to midday.

Unfortunately, the weather didn't 100% cooperate and the clouds were starting to look a bit threatening.

At some point it started to rain more heavily and we figured it would be a good opportunity to head into the centre of town and find somewhere to eat. Indoors, today!

We did find a really nice restaurant with an affordable menu of the day. I had pate, lasagne and a sugary crepe to finish

By the time we'd finished eating, the weather in Carcassonne had markedly improved!

It was still quite chilly if you stood in the wind, but there was now a beautiful blue sky.

We retraced some of our steps from earlier, enjoying the views of the walls with better weather.

There were some nice views out over the surrounding countryside too.

I thought I might even be able to see a bit of snow on top of one of the mountains in the distance.

Eventually it was time to start the climb back down towards the newer part of town.

It was much easier going down than up!

Tim and I had one more thing which we were hoping to do while we were in Carcassonne.

When I'd been trying to pin the location of the train station on my offline map before the trip, the name of one particular street caught my attention.

We've been to Carcassonne so many times and never realised that it had its own Zamenhof Street!

We had to walk about a kilometre out of our way to find it, but we tracked it down without any problems...

...and managed to get a few good photos

Then we had a kilometre walk back to the town centre to meet up with the others and catch our train back towards Toulouse.  It was a fun end to what has been another fun day in France  

The good news was that the weather was forecast to be much brighter today than yesterday. When we stepped outside of the apartment in Toulouse it was a bright sunny day, without so much as a cloud in the sky. Our plan was to visit two towns - Gaillac and Albi - which are both located on the same train line.

Gaillac was our first stop, after about an hour on the regional train from Toulouse. We found the main square full of some kind of Sunday market.

Gaillac is a very pretty town, with lots of medieval buildings.

The biggest building in the town is the Abbey of St Michel.

The abbey is situated on the banks of the river Tarn.

The river itself is large and fast-flowing, with a big weir.

We walked around the back of the abbey...

...and got a view back towards the bridge over the Tarn we'd just been standing on to photograph the abbey.

Then we looped around through a park, which was beautiful in today's bright sunshine.

We were on a strict timetable as we only had about an hour in Gaillac before our next train on to Albi. Gaillac and Albi are very close, so after a journey of less than 15 minutes we had arrived in our second destination. Albi is famous for its enormous cathedral and we got a glimpse of it in the distance as soon as we arrived.

At least there was no doubt about what direction we needed to walk in out of the station to get to the centre of town!

We passed a war memorial...

...walked through a square with pink blossom trees...

...and saw that the cathedral was now getting closer.

It really looks more like a fortress than a cathedral!

It was after midday by this point, so we found an Italian restaurant where we could sit inside and eat. Although it was sunny today, it felt quite chilly in the wind.

Although we didn't run into any Zamenhof Streets in Albi, Tim did spot the Esperanto word "akvo" on this multilingual water bottle in the restaurant.

After lunch we headed out to explore a bit more of the town.

The cathedral is so enormous that it's hard to give an impression of its size in photos.

We went inside to have a look around.

The interior was spectacular too; I really loved the ceilings in particular.

Leaving the cathedral behind, we walked downhill towards the river.

Albi is also situated on the river Tarn.

We had a good view of the old bridge, which was originally built in the 11th century.

It was a lovely scenic walk alongside the river

Like in Gaillac, the river is very fast-flowing here and we passed a hydroelectrical plant.

Once we reached this newer bridge, we began climbing back uphill towards the town centre.

There was just time for one more view of the cathedral, as we headed back towards the station for our train to Toulouse  

Our flight home on Monday wasn't until 5pm, which meant we had almost another full day to spend in France. We decided to do something different with this day and visit a museum called Aeroscopia, which is not far from the airport in Toulouse. Toulouse is famous as the centre of the aerospace industry in Europe, being home to the headquarters of aircraft manufacturer Airbus, and Aeroscopia is a large aviation museum.

For what must be one of Toulouse's major attractions, it was surprisingly hard to get to. First of all we had to catch a metro a few stops out of the city centre. Then we had to switch to a tram, which took us on a rather slow journey through the various suburbs of the city. We had hoped the same tram was going to take us all the way to Aeroscopia, but it unexpectedly terminated at a tram junction, where we had to get off and wait for a second tram to take us the final few stops. Once we got off that tram, we had a short walk and then we saw the museum appearing in the distance.

We had our first exciting aviation experience before we even made it to the museum, when Matt pointed out a Beluga taking off from the nearby airport. Belugas are giant cargo planes, used to carry huge things like aircraft wings from one factory (where they might be built) to another factory (where they might be added to the body of the plane). They are so-called because they look like a beluga whale  

As we approached the museum, we were slightly concerned that that might actually be our only aviation experience of the day, because it looked like the place was deserted. There was a risk that a museum might indeed be closed on a Monday, but luckily that turned out not to be the case; I think a Monday in March was just not a very popular date to visit! Soon we were inside and admiring this Lego model of an A380, which had taken over 300 hours to build.

Once we'd bought tickets we were able to enter the main museum space and admire the aircraft on display. These ranged from the very old...

...to the much more modern.

One of the first things we saw was this enormous plane called a Super Guppy.

This is a huge cargo plane, older than the Beluga which we'd seen taking off earlier, which was once used by NASA to transport rocket parts. The front of the plane opens up like this so that big items can be loaded inside.

One of the most exciting exhibits was this Concorde.

This one was a prototype which was used for testing and experiments.

It had a very pointy nose...

...and a very narrow aisle inside.

The other thing I was quit excited about seeing was this replica of a Star Wars X-Wing, complete with R2D2 in the cockpit  

It was made from over 1.5m Lego bricks and took 1,750 hours to build.

Once we'd finished exploring inside, we were able to go outside and see a few more aircraft. The most impressive by far was this A380, an absolutely enormous double-decker plane.

It's hard to convey in photos just how huge it was! We were able to go inside and explore the interior too, though I forgot to take any photos of that. I think we just added flying on a double-decker plane to our bucket list though

Once we'd seen everything there was to see at the museum, it was time for us to travel to the airport. We really weren't very far away from the airport geographically - only a few kilometres - but it didn't look like it would be an easy walk, so the plan was to use public transport. That turned out to be slightly harder than I expected; we had to retrace our steps several stops on the tram to the junction where we'd changed trams this morning, then wait quite a while for an infrequent bus to take us the final five minutes or so to the airport. But we made it and before too long we were in the air, with a great view back down towards the museum as we took off.

The meal on the plane back was chicken salad, which was a bit too healthy for me. The tiramisu was good, though!

The flight was a fairly short 90 minutes and before long we were flying over central London, on our way to Heathrow. The UK felt rather cold and grey compared to the south of France! It was a great trip though, and definitely feels like we were away for longer than four days