One is the size. Toulouse is a city of about 500,000 so it is much smaller than DC but much larger than Alexandria. With that said, the “downtown” area of Toulouse is quite compact and definitely walkable and liveable.

There is one Main Street (Rue d’Alsace Lorraine), similar to King Street in Alexandria. It is probably not much longer than King Street but has many more shops on it. It has both large and small shops. There is a grocery store, not large but definitely has all the items that one needs for daily living. There is a 3 story department store and then many local and some national stores that sell everything from clothes to cookware to eye glasses (there are literally at least a 100 optical stores that I have found) to knives (there are multiple knife speciality stores that I have found), hair salons (again more that one would imagine) and a variety of other stores. There are not really restaurants on the street. There are a couple of fast food options (that is where I found Five Guys). There is an open square about half way down the street that hosts a flea market. It is primarily a walking street, delivery vehicles and bicycles and motorcycles/bikes are allowed. There are always people strolling and shopping on the road.

Many shops are closed on Monday. It is not universal but almost all the small stores are closed on Monday and many restaurants are closed as well. Most stores are open on Sunday from 10:00 am – 1:30 pm. Almost nothing is open after 1:30 pm on Sunday. Also, most of the small shops close from around noon to 2:00 pm the rest of the days. During that time most restaurants and cafes are packed. There is a lot of eating out at lunch during the week.

Another interesting discovery is there recyclable activities. They do not seem to have recycle pickup street side. I do not have a recyclable bin in my apartment. I was confused as I know that France and Europe are very much into sustainable and environmental issues. I started looking around for recyclable bins and could not figure it out. Then I noticed someone putting glass bottles into a container on the street. I went over and looked at them and realized that there were small recyclable bins just on the street. There is the container that you put the recyclables in and they drop down into these recyclable bins under the street. I still have not figured out how the get the recyclables out of the bins as they are underneath the streets and sidewalks. It makes it fairly easy as they are every couple of blocks on the main streets. I have seen restaurant staff carrying their recyclables to these recyclable bins.

The other thing that I really enjoy seeing is the delivery vehicles that are around the city. Again, this is because the roads are so narrow that trucks and larger vehicles do not work in the center of the city. Mail is delivered by bicycles as are other things.

The run was fun yesterday as the time has changed in Europe to Standard Time (a week earlier than in the United States) and the weather warmed up as the day went on so there was a foggy quality as we ran along the river last night.

I did get to talk to someone during the run last night which was a first and was nice. He is an engineering student at the University of Toulouse so I am making some progress.