I gathered my seven words of French, my French dictionary, my maps and guidebooks - like every good journey this one started at the shelves of Stanfords - and set off for the forgotten southern corner of France.
The TGV train - what a brilliantly fast way to cross a country - rolls into Toulouse station and discards me into a throng of very lively French youths. Welcome to the student capital of France - only Paris has a higher number of students, which is rather unfair competition since its population is many times larger than that of Toulouse.
The books call Toulouse the pink city, supposedly referring mostly to the pink colour of the buildings, rather than to any political or other connotations the word might carry. We did indeed find many of these pink facades, but being a lover of variety I am happy to announce that brown and grey are just as common. It is easy to lose your way in Toulouse among the great little alleyways of superb townhouses, churches and squares with student pubs everywhere. Eventually you will make it to the banks of the Garonne river. Don't miss the main square - Place de Capitole - dominated by the town hall and ringed by the more elegant cafés.
Time to move further south into the Ariége valley, an area visited more by French holidaymakers than by their international counterparts. This does make for a more authentic France, if you will excuse the cliché. Thermal baths, forgotten villages, castles on hilltops, caves with ancient cave paintings and lush forest - we even excused one day of rain as an essential element for lush vegetation - all of this provides plenty of attractions for the visitor. I still can't understand why this is such a forgotten corner of France, but I am not complaining.
For us, though, this was not far enough. We were heading higher up the Pyrenées. We were well stocked with maps, but for once I spent more time choosing maps than studying them in detail in advance. My 1:25,000 IGN map shows 10m contours but I assumed them to be 5m intervals. The result: The foothills were exactly twice as steep as expected, making the target for the day downright absurd.
Peaks of around 3,000m steeply towering above us on the following days confirmed the 10m contour interval as a rather sensible move by the French cartographers who also impressed me immensely with the accuracy they use to mark even the tiniest streams and ponds. My advice: Do not enter here on foot without one.
These same towering peaks on the borders with Spain and Andorra also confirmed that we came to the right place for some solitude in magnificent nature. The Pyrénées offer a wilderness that is not easily rivalled in Europe. That there are still supposed to be a few remaining brown bears certainly adds a touch of excitement while wandering in the evening mist! They are supposed to be good-natured and non-aggressive, a theory we were unfortunately not given an opportunity to test.
Spirit and mind revitalised - and feet a bit worse for wear - saw us on the train back to Toulouse. Here they had decided to hold a festival with live music on the main square and fireworks above the river to mark our return to town… or some other momentous occasion - does 14 July or Bastille ring any bells?
Toulouse is a bit under-represented in the abundance of regional France guidebooks, being lesser known and not quite part of the Mediterranean coast around Provence or south-western France around Bordeaux. But countrywide guides like the Insight Guide to France or the Cadogan Guide to France have extensive informative sections that can be recommended.
The Pyrenées are covered by excellent practical books: the Rough Guide to The Pyrenees covers the French and Spanish side in one book and for the serious walker I recommend the Cicerone Guide Walks and Climbs in the Pyrenees.
And do not forget your IGN 1:25,000 Toulouse map for mountain walking or the IGN Top 100 map of Toulouse - Albi (1:100,000) to cover slightly larger areas of those forgotten villages. Stanfords staff can help you choose the ones you need using map grids.
Author: Gerhard Buttner
Date: 1 August 2001
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