Day 68 - Wednesday 10 July - Toulouse

Wednesday 10 July

Before we left Aust, I had booked a bus tour of Toulouse believing that there was no Ho-Ho bus, but we had found out differently yesterday. It was with the same company, (and I'd booked through an agency, so I'd paid $52 instead of $32).  So we headed off to catch our bus at 10:00, but I got lost and we missed it. But the lady was kind, there was no bother about catching any hoho bus, so we sat about, bought lunch in advance, and caught the 11:00 bus.

 

Another arch.  I have not been keeping up with these for many weeks.

We made our first stop at #4, St Etienne cathedral (he is pretty big in these parts), another big barn.  It has parts from C13, and other bits from C17, which are even more dingy than the older nave. The altar depicts Stephen's stoning, but I found the misericords in the choir seats more interesting.
 

The stoning of Stephen, at the centre of the altar.

Then walked a couple of stops. Stop #5 was the Augustin museum, which houses a collection of gargoyles.  We had decided to go there yesterday afternoon because it was closer to home than the Jacobins, but the museum is closed for renovation until 2020.  What a shame.  The gargoyles would have gone well with the misericords.

On to #6.  I was just going to catch the bus again, but we realised it was at a museum, so we decided to go in. However, it had just closed for lunch, so we had ours, then went for a walk along the river. The gallery had some good art, some mediocre.

The courtyard of Le Hotel d'Assezat, which is home of 7 ancient scientific and literary organisations, and the Bemberg private collection of paintings (C16-20), furniture, sculpture, pottery, books.  D collected a free Southeby's catalogue.

 The Garonne, and the C16 Pont Neuf.

 

We got on the bus again, and went across the river and back, 

an ordinary house in an ordinary street

to #11, another church, St Saturnin, who was the first bishop of Toulouse and was martyred in C5. 

We paid to go around the chapels at the back of the altar, where they had lots of reliquaries, and to the crypt, where they had more.

A model of the basilica, which for some reason was suspended 3m above the floor where no-one could see it.

One of the chapels, with reliquary, and also with 6 wooden C13 apostles

In the crypt

The basilica organ

 From there it was an easy walk ...
 

 Another holy house, with large sculptures to prove it.

St Mary's church

...  back to the Capitoleum - the Toulouse equivalent of the town hall. Its receptions rooms are often open to the public, so in we went. A bit mind-blowing in scale - I guess I'm glad that our local authorities haven't spent so extravagantly.