Toulouse; Monday, 28 March, 2022

As it was a Monday most of the attractions in the city were closed, but what wasn’t were the public gardens.

There are a number of large gardens in the city centre, and three of them form a pleasant arc that you can walk around – connected by link bridges, that mean you never leave the parks or have to cross the road.

The Jardin de Plantes is a pleasant mixed garden with some wide greens, flower beds and a rockery come view point that is surrounded by a small moat. From the far side of the garden a link bridge goes over the traffic of the Grand Rond and into the garden located on the centre.

Building a park on the middle of a large roundabout doesn’t sound like the nicest place to be, but the Grand Rond is enormous and had a line of trees round the edge that help to deaden the sound of the cars and buses racing round outside the park. In the middle the large fountain helps to hide the sound completely and you wouldn’t know that you are sitting in the centre of a giant traffic island.

From the Grand Rond another link bridge crosses back over the road and into the Jardin Royal, a smaller garden that is mostly grass and trees set around a large lake.

Having taken in the gardens I was right by the bus stop for a bus that crosses over the Pont de Catalans just as it was due, so I hopped on the bus and headed across the bridge.

The Pont de Catalans sits a couple of bridges down from the Pont Neuf, but has excellent views back towards the Pont Neuf as well as the weir and the entrance to the Canal de Brienne. On the opposite bank of the river from the main city centre a walkway runs that lets you walk back up the river, over the weir – where you can see and hear the power of the water rushing over it – and back almost to the Pont Neuf.

By now it was time to head back to the hotel, pick up my luggage and make my way back out to the airport to start my journey home.