From Bordeaux, Toulouse!

I enjoyed the trip out of Bordeaux. It was a cloudy day.  In some ways the Bordeaux suburbs reminded me of Korea, where every spare scrap of land was a garden, or had been terraced into a paddy field for rice.

It's like that, but with vines.

Sadly I wasn't able to get the most striking photos, because by the time we hit the suburbs we were already going at a proper pace for a train and I was facing backwards so things tended to flit by very quickly.

But the countryside of France is, in general, beautiful. Full fields of fresh green grass, chateaux -- and Proper Castles -- in the distance, Tiny towns of ancient homes with ceramic roofs. 

Stone buildings sitting in fields, where they've been for perhaps a hundred years, or a thousand.

It's eternally gorgeous in a way that feels both striking and familiar.

I reached Toulouse refreshed and pleased, scrambling through a charming section of town full of art nouveau architecture to find a co-working space and get a little workbdone while I waited for my Airbnb to become available.

The details of the city blend in ways that can be hard to photograph but are really striking in person.

Then grabbed a simple dinner before going out dancing for the evening.  

... So in the next entry, let's talk about Tacos.