Leaving France

On reflection it was an excellent time to leave France. The airports are running out of petrol, the public sector is running out of workers (Sarkozy heading towards his very own 1984 moment i.e. Thatcher not Orwell) and we are running out money by eating foie gras and quaffing red wine each day.

One thing we forgot to put in the last blog was that we did manage to do some exercise while in France, in fact we even managed a 20km walk to nearby Genis one day just to eat at Jerome's restaurant. The food must be good as Jerome is renowned locally for needing a gastric band as a result of his food being so irresistible.

Action Barbie

Our last day in France was spent in Toulouse which turned out to be a great city. We dropped off the car at the airport and then headed into town via the FlyBus to our hotel destination, the IBIS (ok, not really a backpacking hostel but we are too old for that crap).

The city is bigger than I expected, but still quite walkable in an afternoon and we soon determined that it contains a shopping capacity that Monali deems worthy of a return visit...soon.

We enjoyed free entrance to les abattoirs which has been turned into a modern art gallery, though we lack the artistic knowledge (or perhaps are just too cynical) to enjoy many of the exhibits. Ironically the centre piece was a bunch of packing boxes / crates  - leading us to believe that we missed a trick when we had not charged visitors for viewing exactly the same bunch of boxes artistically placed throughout our flat for the last month.

Dinner was taken at a little fast food mexican place called Mex. They only served tacos, sopas and tamales but it all tasted great and the food  is probably the best mexican we have eaten outside of the US. Not sure if it is a chain, but we will be looking out for them in the future.

Excellent mexican

As I am sure you are all well aware Toulouse is the home of Airbus and Monali was very 'excited' about the the four large 'transporter' planes we spotted sitting at the other side of the airport. I think these used for moving A380 (that huge big plane) wings made in the UK to France - what a great production decision that was (aren't subsidies great?).

Plane spotting

So goodbye France and hello Italy....another country where strikes are not uncommon. Its ok, I am sure that their president isn't an arrogant little short arse who creates chaos..........oh shit.