In Toulouse

We had to go to Toulouse to see a man about our money, so we thought we might as well make a day of it. We didn't get off to a good start since, as is usual with our rare travels with the SNCF, the train from Carcassonne was 40 minutes late. So we were late for our meeting. As we left, the banker recommended a place for lunch that specialises in cassoulet ... since it was a hot day and we were eating out this evening, we decided not to take him up on it. Instead we had a long stroll through the streets of Toulouse, bypassing many attractive restaurants, in order to find a place recommended by Lonely Planet, which turned out to be about motorway service station standard. You wouldn't think you could ruin a salad, but they did ... I only ate half of mine (it was enormous). Still, it was very cheap.

In the same square as the restaurant there were a load of cut-in-half shipping containers hosting a photography exhibition, so it seemed like a good idea to have a look. There were a dozen different photographers, of varying quality, topics, and style, with the guy who'd been to the smartest photography institutions producing the worst images. My favourites were Fabrice Cazeneuve's photos of the place where he used to spend holidays as a child. There was also a great documentary set of a girl gang by Kamille Lévêque-Jego. By the time we'd finished looking at this, there was time for another stroll through back streets to the Capitole, where we had excellent ice creams before heading to the station.

The train was on time, which gave us just time to get home before going out again for dinner chez S and T. A very late night ensued ... home at 1 a.m.