Day 20 Ayguevives to Toulouse, 26 km
April 15 in France ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C
Gorgeous morning along the canal. My first goal of the day was to avoid the 2000 school children who were doing some kind of organized “solidarity walk” along the canal path today. Solidarity with what? At almost every lock there were water and snack stations set up for them. Huge piles of organic bananas at one. Stacked flat boxes of pains chocolate at another. Cake at another. They were walking 18 kilometres. Younger kids first. At the first water station I passed, the volunteers told me the kids were 20 minutes behind me. The thought of being stuck in the middle of them was pretty motivating for an hour or so.
The next goal of the day was to find places to pee! Almost impossible. At one point I went through a gate and along a little boardwalk that linked the canal path to an autoroute service centre. Another time I stopped at a cafe. And then nothing - for hours - until the centre of the city.
At first the path passed through semi-rural bedroom communities. And then it moved into the suburbs of Toulouse. Not the big box store kind of suburb but residence blocks (some may have been students dormitories), offices, and big institutional buildings. The biggest of these was the seriously fenced off Airbus campus, for lack of a better word. Apparently there will be more Airbus on the route out of the city. And when I started looking at the map, there are all sorts of aeronautical things here — Nationsl School of Aviation, Institut Superieur de l’aéronautique….
At some point today I finally looked to see what species of tree lines the canal. Gazillions of them. One tree every 4 metres or so, often on both sides of the path. The phone said they are sycamores - but they are plane trees, which are related to sycamores. Should there ever be a bug…And apparently there is. Elaine of Elaine and Ned put a link in the comments.
Closer to the city the canal path became a superhighway for runners. At times it was a steady stream. Midday. Full sun in a few places. But I liked the runners better than the cyclists without bells.
After I checked in to the hotel and showered, I went for a very good coffee, got some voltaren for my knee, and went to the welcome centre for pilgrims in the Saint-Sernin Basilica (I just had to look up the difference between a basilica and a cathedral). I got a stamp, info and a map explaining the two possible routes for leaving the city, and a confirmed reservation for the next gite. The man phoned for me. He also gave me a second, different stamp so I would have one for tomorrow too.
A glass of wine on a shady terrace and an excellent Vietnamese meal were about all the city I could manage tonight. I was happily back in the room by 8:00.
Tomorrow I get to sleep in!Read more
TravelerYour comment about the trees made me remember that I read a few years ago that a disease was attacking them. I looked it up just now. Here’s a link. https://www.replantonslecanaldumidi.fr/our-repl…
mary louise adamsIn the 45 or so kilometres I passed through I did not see the areas where they have been cut down already. Something also said that the plane trees are only about a quarter of all the trees. The other 3/4 are definitely somewhere else!
Traveler
The ubiquitous plane trees! Love them. Really distinctive. For shade I think and they go way, way back. (Maybe why Airbus established headquarters? 😉) Leaves are maple like? Glad you managed to outpace the school kids! Do you go right to the centre of Toulouse? Why (if you’re heading south)?
mary louise adamsThis route goes west for a bit before it turns south, I guess because of where the pass is that it goes over. There is another route where people start in Montpellier and curve down to Carcassonne (or they just start in Carcassonne or Narbonne Plage) and just walk west through the foothills to the Atlantic. we start going southwest at Auch and south at Oloron Ste Marie.