Wine and Cheese; Crepes and Croissants - Southern France!

I went to Southern France this last weekend. Amy Allender and I set out on a last minute journey to the land of delicious pastries, famous cheese and fabulous wines.

And by last minute I mean that we booked our flight Tuesday evening, our hotel was booked on Wednesday and we left Thursday morning from the London airport at the early hour of 7 am!

Upon arrival in Toulouse, we had no idea how our weekend would pan out or what we would do. So we began by checking into our hotel and exploring the little town of Toulouse.





After reading some brochures and talking to some people (although the people in Toulouse are largely unhelpful and didn't appear to know anything about their country or where would be great places to visit - even at the tourist information center!) Amy and I decided to go to the small village of Gaillac where there were many wineries.

Amy and I ended our first night in Southern France with a picnic in our hotel room, consisting of bread, cheese and champagne and by playing a game of rummy with the gigantic playing cards we had purchased earlier that day while watching French television (which is basically american television dubbed in French).



Gaillac does not look impressive from the train station. So on Friday morning we were there for a total of 45 minutes. Enough time to try three local wines, buy some bottles and get some advice of where else we should visit in the region. We were off to Albi.





Albi was amazing! A very beautiful Mediaeval town along the Tarn River. They have the biggest and oldest brick Cathedral in the world! And by old, we are talking 7th century. Also, the town itself was full of things to see and beautiful places to walk.





Amy and I did some more research in Albi and discovered a shop that was dedicated to hiking and biking in the surrounding hills and vineyards. So we picked up some trail maps, got some advice on where to go hiking and decided to say goodbye to Albi.

Upon returning to Toulouse at dinner time, Amy and I enjoyed a fabulous dinner overlooking the main square in the city center and the famous restaurant, known to Americans as - McDonalds. It was actually perfect. A good meal with a good view. We each ordered a Happy Meal, which consisted of chicken nuggets, fried potatoes (not fries, you get a choice), fruit, a drink and a toy!





On Saturday, after a long night of deliberation on what to do and where to hike, we decided to return to Gaillac. Apparantly, by not exploring the city center we missed out on a lot of great sites. Also, there was an 18k hike through French vinyards that we wanted to complete. And that is just what we did. For 3 1/2 hours we hiked through vinyards, next to French villas and ate grapes off of the vines. Everything was incredibly picturesque. We could not have dreamed up a better day!







The end or our hike concluded our trip to France and we headed back to Toulouse to catch our flight back to London.