Toulouse or not Toulouse? That is the Carcassonne!

I really loved the buildings with visible timbers. 

Because I've been a Bad Blogger for months, I haven't posted about our September trip. After our visit to Maastricht in May, I wanted to go somewhere new to us, but not necessarily challenging – somewhere we'd cope with the language and the lifestyle wouldn't be radically different. Mr Robot's always wanted to visit Carcassonne, flights go direct from Bristol to Toulouse, so it made sense to fly to Toulouse and spend a few days there, then spend a few in Carcassonne.

Toulouse is known as 'the pink city', and it is gorgeous. The buildings are mostly of pale terracotta brick, and a lot have balconies painted the prettiest pastel blue. And it is literally pastel blue; 'pastel' is French for woad, which was grown locally, and you see the beautiful greyish-blue everywhere. It's quite a wealthy city – Airbus has its headquarters there, and it's a hub of the aerospace industry – and is also home to a number of higher education institutions, so it all feels very clean and well-maintained. 

We all have days like that...

Somehow several of the museums and galleries were being renovated all at the same time so we didn't visit a couple of the biggest, but we nonetheless managed to fill our time there. The archaeological museum was excellent; a massive collection of sculptures was found at the Roman villa of Charigan, near Toulouse, and many are on display here. The museum building dates from the 1500s but was constructed on the site of a necropolis, so the basement is full of urns, tombs, and other funerary paraphernalia. Clearly a kindred spirit works there – most of the placards in the museum are fairly sensible, but when they got to the visigothic display, they really cut loose with the puns.

Someone at the archaeological museum really likes goths.

Red wine in a jazz bar; many delicious meals; a boat trip up the Canal de Brienne, which connects the Canal du Midi from Marseille on the Mediterranean with the Garonne river that opens into the Atlantic at Bordeaux; a wander round the market; trips out with Mr Robot's new camera to capture the sunset... We had a wonderful time in Toulouse and definitely will be going back.

We booked train tickets between Toulouse and Carcassonne before leaving Britain – it's very easy to do with the Trainline app. Finding somewhere to stay in Carcassonne was tricky; it's a newer town that's built up around a medieval walled citadel on a hill. The hotel within the cité is eyewateringly expensive, and there are other hotels in the more modern town, but we wanted to be near to the cité if possible. As a rule, we stay in hotels as I have ethical concerns about short-term lets making housing unavailable to local people who might need to rent a property to live in. However, that ended up being the option we went for, as we could get somewhere on a street just below the cité. 

The street we stayed on in Carcassonne was just below the citadel.

The cité is really beautiful. A proper medieval walled city (albeit restored in the 19th century, after it was threatened with demolition), with a basilica and all sorts of charming wonky shops and houses inside. It's also heaving with tourists, and I'm saying that as someone who works in Bath. However, it's open and free to enter 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We did wander round by day, and went on the walk round the ramparts (which does require tickets), but we also walked around at night – that new camera needed a workout! – and once the restaurants and shops were closed we pretty much had the place to ourselves. 

I keep referring to the 'more modern' bit, but the lower town also dates from the late medieval period, and we spotted splendid art deco and art nouveau buildings there. However, it's clear that the town depends on tourism, and not a lot of that trickles visibly down from the cité. There's a lovely square with restaurants round it, but at any time we visited only half at most were open... and then only between 12 and 2, and in the evening. I was quite glad we were renting an apartment in the end, as one day we'd have struggled to get lunch at all outside the cité. The shops were pretty much all closed on Monday. It feels like a town that's half-open at best. But it was pretty, and the town's art gallery contains a lot of really impressive paintings.

We'll definitely go back to Toulouse. I don't think we'll return to Carcassonne, but I'm very glad to have seen it.