Day 1: Home to Toulouse and Montauban

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...