Toulouse Or Not To Lose

I'm knackered, I've spend all day in the pink city, not admiring the brickwork (after which it gets its nickname) of the old town, nor it's varied cultural facilities, nor its famed space centre. I've been making an abortive search for an hotel within walking distance of where I want to go on Thursday next week. I spent seemingly hours driving through mile after mile of low-rise apartment blocks in the suburbs without finding one hotel. I've never been in this part of a major french town before and it seems so different from the miles and miles of suburban UK housing (or little boxes as Pete Seeger called them many years ago)

My quest started because, as usual, I've done things arse about face. I've never been to a french football match, I regularly watch football on TV and many years ago watched live footy in UK but not here. Toulouse or TFC have qualified for the EUFA cup and I thought I would treat myself to tickets for their 2 home games between now and Xmas. I've been on the Internet and ordered them and as the games end at past 22.00, the 2 hour drive is a bit much for an old fart, so an hotel is in order.

Even though a daily morning walk is necessary for both dog and health reasons this is one old fart who's not really designed for excessive walking, and as a glance at the TFC website showed a number of parking areas close to the stadium my first priority was to see if it were possible to get a space there-in. So I started my day in town at the stadium box office. I told the young thing there that I had an Internet ticket for the game against Sparta Prague and asked if it was possible to book parking. She said "not for the moment!"

I had no idea what this colloquialism actually meant ! Did she mean "later" or "perhaps later (if a cancellation)" or " first come first served on the day" ? I just can't think fast enough in french to respond to a dilemma like that so I just slunk off into the car park (empty, of course!) and invented plan "B". That's the search for a local hotel.

Plan "B(2)" was to look for on-street parking within walking distance of the stadium but on a Wednesday morn (albeit in the half term hols.) every possible inch was crammed tight and that's not an exaggeration because the reason that french cars have bumpers is that as they park so close together they have to bump their way out!