Everything I couldn't find on the internet

Ah Toulouse, France. So beautiful and yet SO confusing at times. The city which I'm about to spill all the tea about is indeed Toulouse. I am now a student here in "Jean Jaurès Université" or also most often referred to here as "Le Mirail". I've been here for a little over a mouth now and I think it is safe to say I can do a pretty well job at answering some of the most important questions similar to those that I had when I first arrived here.

Even before I booked my flight to Toulouse I was browsing the internet trying to find the most amount of useful information that I would potentially need and I did but the thing is I never really found anything that useful. They were of course little pieces of information that I used but nothing detailed. All the blogs, travel sites, YouTube videos were telling me the same thing: see the Capitole, the city is called the pink city because of the color of the buildings, see the river Garonne and a few other monuments which yeah sound pretty and aesthetically pleasing but they never really show you why you absolutely should go visit those places.

Lets start of with The Capitole. In every site you will see a big, beautiful, pink brick building but for me personally it wasn’t enough to make me go. And I am so thankful that I did after all. What I didn’t know was that you can actually go in that big beautiful building and that’s when the magic began. Let me just show you what I mean. Oh and did I mentioned that it's free?! And if you lucky on certain days there is actually a travelling market where you can buy homemade cheese, jewelry, taste burgers with a French twist, buy fresh fruit, flowers and oh so much more.

If you want to spend a chill afternoon having a pick nick with some friends or just grabbing a beer and enjoying some alone time the river Garonne is the place to go.

A very typical view is to see all kinds of people just sitting laying on the ground, eating, drinking, doing homework, just chilling. What I found really cool is that you can literally sit on the board of the river and watch the little tiny fish swim in the water. And the view is just amazing. Again I will insert pictures because my words can’t describe it good enough. And if you feel like a romantic stroll down the river there are boats that for a certain price you can enjoy once again.

The city is in fact called the pink city because of the color of the bricks. Back when the city was made those same pink bricks were a sign of poverty and were considered to be shameful. Life is a funny funny thing because well look how that turned out.

Some other place worth visiting is L’eglise des Jacobins or the church of the Jacobins and again you have to go inside it, it is also free for the most part but if you want to pay a few extra euros and see all the parts of the church which I highly recommend you do because you will see one of the most beautiful typically French style gardens and it is with big certainty I tell you it is absolutely stunning.

La jardin des plantes is also something you won’t want to miss. It is basically a big beautiful park with different types of trees and special plants but it’s filled with sculptures, little hidden places with benches to sit on, tiny waterfalls, bridges and all kinds of adorable animals like ducks, birds etc. It is once again absolutely free. See pictures below. Right next to this park is the museum of natural history whitch i unfortunately didn't get the chance to visit.

The city is also known for its Cité de L'espace whitch is again museum for everything space related I do recommend going and seeing it but only if you are really interested in it because it is kind of expensive from my point of view. If i remember correctely it was about 60 euros per person.

There are a lot of different places and monuments to visit but honestly the best advice I can give you is to put some comfortable shoes and start walking around. The entire city is like a walk in history. The streets and the buildings are all old but renovated, the architecture is just gorgeous there are sculptures and fountains everywhere and the public transport is so well made the metro is really handy really simple to use so are the buses and if you get lost or just need some information regarding anything just stop someone and ask i guarantee you they will help you in any way they can. People are so incredibly nice here. To make the public transport even easier to use the city has its own app called Tisseo where you can just tap in an address and it tells you exactly witch buss metro or train you can take, change etc. to get you to the place you need to be. But tap in just the street name without its number or it won't show you any results. The big universities like mine have metro stations right next to them for easier access. The city is full of young openminded people and Fridays and Saturdays the night life is at its best that's when the metro and the buses work till the latest also. For the metro its 3 o'clock when usually 12 and for the busses it varies depending on the bus but usually its around 1 or 2 sometimes. To conclude i really hope this helped some of you out there in search of good information and inspired you to come visit or even study here because it definitely is worth it.