Toulouse

Toulouse is a city on the Garonne River in southwestern France and the capital of the Occitanie region. Its buildings of pink brick earned it the name la Ville Rose, the pink city.

Roman Tolosa stood on the river, and in the 5th century Toulouse became the capital of the Visigothic kingdom. The counts of Toulouse ruled much of southern France in the Middle Ages, and the University of Toulouse was founded in 1229. The Canal du Midi, the work of Pierre-Paul Riquet, opened in 1681 and linked the Garonne at Toulouse with the Mediterranean. Woad, a plant dye for blue cloth, made fortunes for local merchants in the 16th century, and the Hôtel d'Assézat, built for one of them, now holds a collection of paintings.

Latécoère, based in Toulouse, makes doors and fuselage sections for airliners; its founder Pierre-Georges Latécoère started the airmail line from Toulouse to Dakar and South America that Antoine de Saint-Exupéry flew in the 1920s. Thales Alenia Space builds communication satellites in the city, and Liebherr-Aerospace Toulouse designs air systems that cool and pressurize airliner cabins. Candied violets and violet perfume are sold in shops around the old town.

The Basilica of Saint-Sernin, a Romanesque church of brick and stone with an octagonal bell tower, was a stop for pilgrims on the way to Santiago de Compostela and is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The Capitole, the city hall, takes its name from the capitouls, the consuls who governed Toulouse, and its Salle des Illustres is painted with scenes from local history. Cité de l'espace, a space park on the eastern edge of the city, displays a full-size Ariane 5 rocket and a copy of the Mir space station.