Toulouse - Marché Victor Hugo, Marché des Carmes, and Musée de l'Histoire de la Médecine

**** No restaurant in this one; just a couple of markets and some exploring!

We put in a bit of mileage of the "footmobile" variety during our first full day in Toulouse. 

First thing in the morning we headed off to the huge Marché Covert Victor Hugo.

A market has existed in this spot since 1827 when it was named Place du Marché-au-Bois. The square was renamed Place Victor Hugo in 1886 and in 1892 the renovation to a covered market was completed. 

I was told there are over 200 stalls in the market, including several restaurants on the first (second floor in US) floor, which we'd revisit later on during our trip.

As you can imagine, there are fromageries, boucheries, numerous produce stands, and so forth. You can easily identify the more popular vendors here.

While not super crowded, it was busy enough at 8am on a Friday morning.

Marché Victor Hugo
Place Victor Hugo
31000 Toulouse, France

There are also many shops and restaurants surrounding the market, but because it as fairly early in the morning most were closed. We'd return here later in the day.

As you can tell, it was a overcast and drizzly day. Not serious rain mind you; but just enough to wet the streets and irritate you!

We headed south doing the "lèche-vitrine" ("window licking" - window shopping) thing along the way. And before you knew it, we were at Cathédrale Saint-Étienne de Toulouse. So we popped on in for a quick look.

There has supposedly been a church on these grounds since the 3rd Century. The first Cathedral was constructed here around 1078 AD.

We stopped for a coffee break before heading west. There was a museum I was interested in that was across the Garonne River. But since we were in the area, we decided to stop in at another covered market, the Marché Couvert des Carmes.

A smaller market that wasn't quite as bustling as Marche Victor Hugo.

Marché des Carmes
Place des Carmes
31000 Toulouse, France

We crossed the river on the Pont Neuf.

And found the tiny, Musée de l'Histoire de la Médecine. We had already visited the Musée de l'Histoire de la Médecine in Paris, so we thought it might be fun to check out this one.

Like I mentioned above; the museum is tiny, but there are some interesting exhibits.

The most interesting was the collection of death masks and skin afflictions.

Musée de l'Histoire de la Médecine
2 rue Viguerie Hotel Dieu-St Jacques
31300, Toulouse France

So, of course after viewing all of this, we needed to grab some lunch. So, we headed back to Place du Capitole and the Christmas Market (this was in late November) and grabbed some sandwiches and tartine.

Before heading back to our room to freshen up.

For some reason, we weren't particularly tired and the Missus wanted to check out a chocolate shop so we headed back to Place Victor Hugo. We first stopped at this shop.

Did you know that the flower of Toulouse is the Violet? In fact, Toulouse is known as the "City of Violets". And while it wasn't really the right season; you could still find violet products in some stores.

And the Missus got what She was looking for here. Some tea. We'd end up making "Le Goûter" a routine while spending two weeks in Paris later during this trip.

Cafés J. Bacquié
5 Place Victor Hugo
31000 Toulouse, France

We also stopped by this chocolate shop.

They sold pieces by weight here. The Missus enjoyed the confections here a lot and we'd end up returning to buy a lot before leaving Toulouse. I'll post on it later.

This post is getting rather long; so I think I'll stop here. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Comments

[kat]

what an interesting museum and all of those markets looked fun to explore

[Kirk]

It was Kat!