Hôtel Dieu Saint-Jacques, Toulouse

We went to Toulouse today, because S wanted to visit an exhibition about bears at the Natural History Museum. I wasn't terribly interested in this, but decided to tag along and visit the Fondation Bemberg, an art collection I've never seen.

We had intended to go on the train, but luckily we checked the SNCF site before we left home and found that the train we'd planned to take was already 25 minutes late. So we decided it would be quicker and cheaper to drive. We arrived in time for lunch at le Petit Rajasthan, a very highly rated Indian restaurant, which was pretty good by French standards -- i.e. as good as a very average British one, and certainly not up to Birmingham standards. Still, we did enjoy being able to eat nans and drink lassi, not something we get to do very often, and although poppadoms weren't on the menu they did some for us specially.

The Bemberg foundation was a bit of a mixture -- the works range from the 15th to the early 20th century. I skipped most of the first floor and spent most of my time in the Fauve room. There were eight lovely Dufys in there -- the more I see of his work the more I like it; much richer than it first appears. There was a room full of Bonnards, and a few nice drawings by Picasso, Dégas, and Toulouse-Lautrec too. I don't think you were supposed to take photos -- I sneaked a couple, but they weren't very good. We finished the day with a coffee on the place du Capitole, and a bookshop browse.

As you can see, it was an overcast day in Toulouse (and sunny everywhere else). I wasn't happy with most of my photos. I took this view over the river on the way back to the car; the Hôtel Dieu was founded in 1257 on the site of two earlier hospitals, partly to care for pilgrims heading for Santiago de Compostela, and it still is a hospital. Look large to see the people for scale.