I left Gdansk this morning to head to Toulouse. Tom was heading to Warsaw so we parted company that the Gdansk Train station with me heading to the airport and Tom catching a train. I flew through Amsterdam and added an airport to my list as I had never flown through Schiphol airport. I did not see much of it because I had a quick connection.

Arrival in Toulouse was very easy. It is a very small airport (even though Airbus is based here). I caught the Navette Aeroport bus for a quick ride into the city. One of the stops on the bus was about a 5 minute walk from the AirBNB.

The AirBNB is very charming and quaint – a typical apartment in the old city – according to my host – Natalie. She is very nice but speaks limited English which gave me my first test of whether my French lessons did any good. I was able to understand much of what she said. Natalie was great as she asked me what I was interested in seeing and doing. She got out a map and showed me where to go and things to see. Also included were restaurants to try as she even asked my budget for dinners.

I wandered around the old part of the city for a couple of hours and tried to get acclimatized to the heat as I went from cool Baltic weather to very hot south of France weather. All the people in Toulouse were out and trying to avoid the heat. There is a river in Toulouse and I walked over to it. There were lots of people sitting in the shade by the river or in cafes having a cool refreshment.

I sat a cafe and had my first glass of wine in France. It was a Chinon and was reasonably good. It was just a small local cafe so did not have an extensive wine selection. I am looking forward to visiting some wine shops and seeing what they have. I might even try to go on a wine tour while I am here.

After changing clothes, first time I had worn shorts on this trip and needed to look better for dinner, I went to a neighborhood bistro right at the corner of the street where the AirBNB is located. It seemed to mainly be locals which is always important to me when choosing a restaurant. I had a very good dinner, trio of tomato salad, duck breast and French fries. It was washed down with a glass of Bordeaux.

My first impressions of Toulouse are good. The old city seems small but definitely livable. I felt the areas of Tallinn, Vilnius and Gdansk where we stayed were definitely the tourist areas. Riga felt more like a local area. Toulouse is definitely not as high on the tourist scale so things feel much more local.