A heiter guide to France’s Pink City: how to spend a day in Toulouse
“Toulouse has a special place in my heart as I first visited the city in the South West of France during my honeymoon. One year later, when my husband and I travelled to different cities across Europe to decide where to move next, we spent one month exploring the city during the summer. I recently went back to attend a creative retreat nearby and spent a day strolling across the now familiar streets, revisiting my favourite spots.”
Contributor Veronica Ferrari takes us around her heiter places in Toulouse, exploring different neighbourhoods of France’s Pink City.
Carmes
An elegant area near the central Place Capitole, Carmes is a maze of old streets and historical buildings that converge around the Carmes covered market. A walk down Rue Pharaon and Rue de la Dalbade is the perfect way to admire the surviving medieval buildings and peek inside the open gates of hidden “hôtels particuliers”.
Carmes
Galerue des Arcades on Place du Capitole featuring paintings by artist Raymond Moretti
Maison Pillon in front of the market is an elegant and delicious bakery where to taste traditional French pastries, including some flavoured with crystallised violet, one of Toulouse’s specialities.
If you are visiting on a hot summer day, the Italian deli next door, La Dolce Vita, makes an incredible homemade gelato under the name La Golosa.
The nearby green areas, Jardin de Plantes and Grand Rond, offer a shady respite to enjoy your treats on the grass during the warm months. In colder months, the Café du Quai makes a great stop for a coffee and cake break.
Capitole & Arnaud Bernard
The city centre of Toulouse spreads between the quartiers of Capitole and Arnaud Bernard, with Place du Capitole at its centre. Stroll down the paved Rue du Taur, mingling with locals and students from the nearby university, until you reach the square of the Basilica of Saint-Sernin and the archaeological museum Saint-Raymond.
Hidden in the narrow Rue de Périgord nearby, the seventeenth-century former chapel of the Carmelitans (Chapelle des Carmélites) might not seem much from its exterior façade, but it hides an incredible space with frescoed ceilings and large-sized paintings that is nowadays used for cultural and musical events, including candlelight concerts. It’s worth keeping an eye on the agenda to see if anything is on during your time in the city.
Chapel of the Carmelitans
Continuing down the road, you will reach the city’s main market, Marché Victor Hugo, where you will come across one of the most delicious secrets of Toulouse: the Paris-Toulouse® pastry by B. Authié. This is a reinterpretation of the classical French pastry Paris-Brest with a hazelnut praline cream and a violet whipped cream.
Two more former convents that the city has preserved and converted into cultural centres, the Couvent des Jacobins and the Musée des Augustins (reopening soon in December 2025), make two great spots for an artistic and historical visit. The first hosts a fun programme of creative ateliers and exhibitions around the Middle Ages, while the second is the city’s fine art museum with a collection spanning from medieval sculptures to nineteenth-century paintings.
La Daurade & Saint Cyprien
With the Garonne flowing down its middle, the origin of Toulouse’s nickname as “la ville rose”, the pink city, becomes even more evident at sunset, when the late afternoon light hits the city’s numerous terracotta brick buildings with its pinkish hues and their reflections ripple in the water, turning the river the same colour.
Having a picnic and enjoying your favourite drink on the grassy banks of the Garonne is a favourite pastime for locals and a great place to enjoy the French tradition of apéro.
Afterwards, make your way across one of the bridges, Pont Neuf or Pont Saint-Pierre, to reach the neighbourhood of Saint Cyprien on the other side of the river.
La Promenade du Charles Rose is a short pathway above the banks of the river, from which to see the water up close and the strength of the river flowing. You can also buy a drink from the small kiosk Guinguette Saint-Cyprien and enjoy the view from the chairs and benches set along the dyke.
At its back, Les Abbatoirs is a cultural centre dedicated to modern and contemporary art that focuses on innovative art trends from the 1950s onwards.
In the centre of Saint Cyprien, Cacao Fages is a gourmet chocolate shop where you can taste cacao beans and delicacies from across the world and admire the incredible chocolate statues adorning the boutique.
Stop at Hayuco Coffee Copola to pair your chocolate treats with a cup of speciality coffee.
Where to shop for unique souvenirs
Close to Place du Capitole, Rue des Arts, Rue de la Pomme and Rue Cantegril are dotted with plenty of independent boutiques where to find unique souvenirs from Toulouse and browse interesting independent brands.
Here is a selection of some of my favourite shops:
La Maison de la Violette
Violet from Toulouse is a traditional ingredient and speciality that is impossible to miss around the city. From culinary ingredients including violet liquor and violet candies to soaps, candles, perfumes and beauty products, you will easily find these traditional souvenirs in multiple shops, but La Maison de la Violette is the city’s official violet shop on board a purple narrowboat moored on the canal in front of the train station and it makes the shopping much more fun.
Maison Bleu de Pastel
Known as the “blue gold” of Toulouse, pastel is a plant with yellow flowers that has been known for centuries to give a long-lasting blue dye through a complex process. During the Renaissance, Toulouse was one of the main cities known for this dye and its merchants became rich until indigo, which is much easier to process, replaced pastel for dyeing. La Maison Bleu de Pastel sells a variety of interesting products using pastel and also has a small museum to discover more about this forgotten natural dye.
Ecume Store
Inspired by life by the Atlantic Ocean and designed by owner Aure-Line to offer a curated selection of products for both men and women, Ecume Store is an independent fashion store with a great selection of brands focused on ethics and sustainability.
Trait Papier
A stationery shop with a fantastic selection of brands of notebooks, pens, paper and art supplies, including Libri Muti and Legami, two favourite Italian brands, and the well-known Japanese brand Traveler’s Notebooks.
Les Ombre Blanches bookshop
Les Ombres Blanches bookshop spreads across a few different locations, all close to each other on Rue Gambetta, with specialised locations for travel books and cinema. The main shop at 50 Rue Léon Gambetta also has a small café inside, while the recently opened Ombres Blanches Internationale at 13 Rue Sainte-Ursule is the perfect stop for English-language books.
Les Ombre Blanche
Chez Zel - Mode and Deco Concept Store
Chez Zel is a fun boutique mixing fashion and home decor, where Élodie et Charlotte promote local French artisans and brands, such as Le Briquetier, which relaunches the brick, symbol of Toulouse’s traditional buildings, with special quotes and personalised words.
Veronica Ferrari is a freelance writer, publishing consultant and social media analyst based in Paris. She also writes More Than Just Views, a Substack newsletter and creative corner for culturally curious wanderers filled with travel stories and musings on creativity, art, books and life abroad.
Image of the Galerue des Arcades via Unsplash, all other images by Veronica Ferrari.
