Impromptu Toulouse: Day two

I don't think my feet will ever forgive me.

I woke up feeling slightly groggy this morning and decided that the best way to deal with that would be to chomp my way through some multivitamins and avail myself of the bath in my hotel room for an expectorant soak. After quite some soaking and sighing in lovely hot water I was ready to take on the outside world, and by about 11am was having the breakfast in the Hotel Bristol (not my hotel) that I should have had yesterday morning in Bordeaux. My croissant (flaky, buttery, altogether rather good), tartine, café allongé and freshly-squished orange juice set me back 9€, which is perfectly acceptable. I desperately needed caffeine after my long morning's doing-nothing as my room does not come with a kettle even though I have, this time, come with an Aeropress and some beans. Do not question me.

My first port of call was the Capitole, again, because I thought I'd go and look at the Minotaur in daylight and take some better photos of it, but it had (been) moved before I got there. Although I am now the proud owner of a foldy-outy tourist map of Toulouse which I swiped from reception, I didn't really have much of a plan because I am a woefully under-prepared traveller and in any case I came for the machines, so that was my only real mission.

There was plenty of aimless walking, disguised as targeted power-tourism, of course, to the point that we're talking numbers of steps that would be scary were I to be counting. My first stop post-Capitol was the library of study and heritage, a massive geometric art-deco affair which is quite the imposing building indeed. Built in 1932 it serves as the legal deposit for the region and has a large children's collection totalling some 40,000 books dating back to the 19th century. The library is built on the site of the old Carmelite convent which was destroyed during the revolution leaving only the Chapelle des Carmélites next door, which turned out to be the first source of much oohing and aahing of the day.

The chapel was hosting an exhibition of (apparently) art but I was more interested in the 17th and 18th-century paintings on the walls and ceilings, which are magnificient.

From there I found myself pottering about until I stumbled across the Basilica of Saint-Sernin, a world heritage site which stands on the site of the 4th-century abbey which contained the body of the first bishop of Toulouse, Saint Sernin, who died in around 250CE following unfortunate incident in which some pagan priests tied his feet to a bull in protest at his refusal to denounce Christianity. The placename Matabiau is a portmanteau of matar ("the killing") and biau or bœuf ("bull"), which is worth bearing in mind next time you take a train there.

The Basilica is something of a mish-mash of styles due to four building phases and is the first thing that I noticed being very pink, which suddenly made me realise that Toulouse itself genuinely is very pink indeed once you notice how pink it is, and suddenly my day became rose-tinted. The inside of the basilica is nicely subdued, all things considered, and I had a dutiful wander around with a quick look in the crypt before finding myself in front of the Capitole again, somehow.

I had no idea where I was going or how I'd got back there. Of course it was deliberate; I am a seasoned traveller.

Church number three was the stumbled-upon-by-chance Church of the Jacobins, although it has been deconsecrated and now seems to serve as a place to hang some very colourful strip lights from the vaulted ceiling which play wonderfully with the light from the massive stained-glass windows and the 28-metre pillars that hold the whole thing up. It is possible to visit the adjoining convent, but that wasn't free and I was in a power-tourism mood. I was not far from the river, which is where I found the Great Spider being prepared for its trip up and down the Pont Saint Pierre. The crowds were already amassing and in my attempts to avoid them I set off to find another church, but not before I'd been distracted by a lovely little triangular Spanish épicerie fine called La Esquina where a very welcome warm Manchego sandwich with a glass of red and a coffee set me back 11€.

The locals were very friendly and I approved very much of the option to buy a sandwich for someone who can't afford one, a scheme where your 7€ is kept behind the counter to pay for food for someone in need. An expert on Toulouse as I now am after only one day, the whole Saint Cyprien side of the river seems slightly more shabby chic, and in a good way. All of Toulouse seems to be lovely, so I might be doing other parts a disservice, but this side of the river seemed, for want of a better word, cosy.

Word was that the spider would wander down the Rue du Pont Saint-Pierre, so I had time for a bonus church - Saint Nicholas - before it became apparent that plans had changed and it was now heading across the bridge towards Esquirol first. I ended up following it, along with hundreds of like-minded people who were sadly not in much of a rush. I fought my way over the bridge and through the crowds then had a nice potter about and a bonus basilica and a beer. Thinking there might be something to see on the other side of the Pont Neuf, I found myself hemmed in by people waiting for the spider, again, which put on a very good show as it approached along the rue de la République and onto the bridge, which turned out to be the end of its route.

As this was happening, a small orchestral ensemble seated on two hydraulic platforms rose into the air and parted like gates to let the spider through. Meanwhile on the bridge proper, a harpist was suspended from a crane and protected by plastic sheeting from the water the the spider squirted out of various orificies and the foam that a machine suspended from a crane above us squirted all around, perhaps trying to be a web or just being really rather pretty.

It was completely by chance that I found myself in exactly the right place at the right time, and I was so very pleased with myself because the whole spectacle was an utter delight which ended, once the spider had reached its destination and we were all covered with spider-goo, with the acrobats/pilots on board abseiling down ropes from the thorax to the ground to much applause and many squeals of excitement from the children who were having the time of their lives and shrieks of freshly-installed trauma from those who weren't, trembling behind the parents who'd only very recently discovered their children's fear of giant mechanical steam-breathing death-spiders.

Le Gardien du Temple - La Porte des Ténèbres is an urban opera which is performed across the city of Toulouse over three days by La Compagnie Machine. La Machine is a street theatre company which was founded in 1999 and led by François Delarozière, a Marseille-born engineering nut who lists Gustave Eiffel, Antonio Gaudi, surrealism, and dadaism as some of his influences. The company combines artists, technicians and theatre designers working together to construct "unusual theatre objects".

Normally, Asterion the Minotaur and friends are to be found giving people rides around the Halle de la Machine, a museum in the south-east of Toulouse "where street theatre meets mechanics", but this year Asterion, Ariane the Great Spider, and Lilith, the Guardian of Darkness are let loose to rampage through the streets of Toulouse and put on an amazing spectacle that is free for all to see, assuming you can get close enough or have the enormous good fortune to occupy a flat with a window that gives onto a street down which one of the beasts is rampaging.

Getting back over the bridge was a challenge, but once I was back on the other side of the river I found the slightly disappointing and oddly-shaped cathedral before it became time for another beer. It was starting to get dark at this point and I wondered whether I'd try to get manakish again or whether to have couscous or something from one of the many lovely-smelling restaurants that seem to be dotted all over the city. To this end I wandered up Jean-Jaurès towards the station - very pretty at night - where I stopped for a sit down and a look to see if there were any trains to any exciting destinations. There were none, but the massive delays to trains to Bordeaux had triggered a very shouty woman who was being progressively encircled by SNCF agents keen, perhaps, to avoid a kerfuffle or simply with nothing better to do.

Once she'd finished being shouty (about the time she realised we weren't watching any more) I bought a pack of Fisherman's Friends to help with my cough, checked out some fridge magnets (and checked there'd be fridge magnets for sale tomorrow), then decided I would make one more attempt at getting manakish.

In Capitole I saw Lilith -- the scorpion-cum-lady with massive it-was-clearly-cold-when-we-built-her breasts -- but only from a distance as the square was rammed to the point of being pretty much untraversable.

I fought my way across in what was a very real challenge and took refuge on Gambetta, hoping to get something to eat, but everything was take-away only and I don't really think standing up to eat is what humans were designed to do. I abandoned the idea of food and had a sit down to think instead, just as the streets started heaving once more and I wondered whether the show on the Place du Capitole had ended and I was experiencing a modern-day vomitorium. It turned out that the Capitole had reached capacity and suddenly no routes led to anywhere and the police had descended with megaphones to tell us the Capitole was closed; suddenly lots of people had to figure alternative routes to get back to wherever they wanted to be. I was starting to fade by this point, and while I was contemplating a Toulous'hein veggie burger on the Rue de la Pomme, another crowd of tourists came charging through pursued by the massive spider which had taken life again after its afternoon performance and was now terrorising tourists in the neon-lit narrow streets in a most spectacular arachnophobic display.

Some walking through some previously unchartered parts of Toulouse later, I was so happy to finally find myself back on Jean-Jaurès and by extension the rue du Bayard, where I ordered veggie couscous in a place where the music and clientèle suggested the couscous would be good. It was, and it only cost me 8€, perhaps as compensation for the music which appeared to be on repeat, and came with nice harissa.

After food I stood up to leave the restaurant, at which point my legs and feet declared enough was enough and hobbled me slowly through the wet, back towards my hotel. I had a swift half of cider in my new favourite bar, then with nearly everything aching dragged myself into my hotel room and booked my return tickets.

As there is an extra hour tomorrow morning, I may well try again to see Lilith.