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Saturday 15 September 2012

A day out in Toulouse

After a few stressful days with finding out our lovely school back in new Zealand has been earmarked for closure as well as getting a letter from the International School of Toulouse saying that they can't offer Hannah a place unless she has a full time teacher aide - which we have to employ, we decided to head into Toulouse for some sightseeing.

We parked in an underground carpark right under the capitol square and then we walked out we came up into the middle of the outside seating of a cafe.

We had decided that we would like to go on a boat cruise down the Canal de Garonne which is the main canal in Toulouse.  We couldn't find a timetable on line so thought we'd go to the information centre.  The man said they went about every hour, so we headed down to the canal.  On the way we decided to have a look in the capitol building, which had the most amazing murals on the walls and ceilings.  We even found a painting of a sculpture we saw on our boat cruise later in the day.



When we got there at 10.50 we found that the next one didn't go till 2.30pm.  There were lots of people hanging around by the boats and when one came in at 12pm they got on.  We decided to act like good little sheep and follow them on.  Everyone else went downstairs but we thought we'd get a better view from the top.  We thought it was a bit odd so went downstairs to investigate and discovered that they were serving lunch.  We decided this could be fun so found a table and sat down.  On the table was water and wine in jugs and a big basket of bread.  We then got broguht a big bowl of salad (at this stage we had no idea how much this would cost but told jasper that we could always scrub the deck to pay for our meals - he wasn't keen).  After that the food just kept coming with duck and potatoes for our main, then chesse and dessert followed of course by coffee.  james has decided to start drinking coffee although he does put 2 large sugars in it.


Yes all that cheese is just for us!

Such a lovely lunch and such a neat thing to do - a fantastic french experience.   The captain of the boat was a real character and all the staff were lovely and friendly.

We then went on the cruise down the river and had our first experience of a lock and how it works which was pretty neat.  We went through some very low tunnels and did feel slightly anxious when the roof of the boat was lowered and we were sitting up on the top deck!
 Going into the lock.




 Yes Penelope it will touch!

People sitting along the river enjoying the sunny day and the photographic exhibition on the walls.

 Well deserved gelato.

 The boat we went on for our lunch cruise.

A concert going on in the Capitol square.

A lovely day out and I even got to have 30 mins looking around the shops on my own while James and the kids got icecream.  



5 comments:

  1. My goodness, sounds fantastic. How did it end? I expected you to say that you had joined a tour group by mistake and no one noticed? Or did you have to scrub the decks? Yes, you must feel gutted about the school closures, our friend Parata isn't exactly the soul of discretion is she? No easy let down. How is the job going James, it must be your turn to give the goss? Will Skype tonight at 7 pm nz time.

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  2. What a great day. I remember watching that procedure at Campden Lock in London. Poor couple as there was hundreds of spectators to make sure it happened without incident. I was hoping that your school wasn't on the "for the chop list". It is a real shame. They may change their minds. Hopefully a Teacher Aide will be found for Hannah. Have a nice Sunday.

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  3. Love all the photos Rachel - it just looks amazing. You won't want to come back to dreary Christchurch!! Our big outing for the weekend was to the playground and it rained!!
    Will pray for a solution for Hannah for schooling. Mxoxo

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  4. Sometimes I think my comments and then they don't, looks like you had a fab time!

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  5. Yes I am getting your comments.

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