Read Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4.

For Day 5, we had a 28-mile route from Villeneuve-lès-Béziers to Sète, our final destination along the Mediterranean Sea. The path along almost the entire route was paved, making for gentle riding under the rows of trees that offered plentiful shade.

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There was a short stretch where we had been advised to divert from the canal and take local roads. But this was behind us quickly as we soon were back along the canal. We passed a long stretch of the amusement park-like family camps the French prefer over backpacking, and then an actual, gaudy amusement park as well as a bizarre cluster of haunted-house-horror-themed parks.

The rural ambiance was slipping away now as we crossed the Hérault River and entered the town of Agde. We skirted around the exterior and then made a tough decision.

From here, the canal turned north for several more kilometers before reaching its final destination, the Étang de Thau. This “pond” is separated from the Mediterranean by a long peninsula that leads to Sète, the ancient entry point for ships carrying cargo destined for the canal. But another local road from Agde had a dedicated bike lane and a more direct route to the sea. Hard as it was to not pursue the psychological victory of seeing the official end of the canal, the ease offered by the bike lane was too alluring after 5 days glued to bike seats.

These last 15 miles flew by us in what felt like a blink. When we reached Marseillan Beach along the Sète peninsula, the bike path separated from the road and widened into two dedicated, spacious bike lanes that allowed us to ride abreast of each other. From this point to Sète, there is a stretch of remarkably undeveloped beach for about 8.5 miles until the end of the peninsula that has since become one of our favorite French coastal spots.

On either side were protective sand dunes with wisps of grass as anchors. The sun was bright, and the blue Mediterranean sparkled under it.

We were giddy now, clapping our hands and cheering ourselves. About halfway down the peninsula, we stopped one last time and locked the bikes for a short picnic on the sand. Slipping off our shoes, we waded into the chilly waters up to our ankles, took selfies, saluted Riquet’s grand work, and celebrated our accomplishment.

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The Path Ahead

These images of triumph were revived 18 months later when I received an email from the regional Occitanie government inviting me to a press conference concerning the future of the Canal du Midi.

The November 2019 event was being held at the Toulouse prefecture, a 5-minute walk from my front door. Entering the main courtyard, I passed under an imposing portal with 50-foot doors swung open into the courtyard. The building dates to the 17^th century when it was home to religious leaders before being seized in the Revolution and repurposed for administrative functions.

A press officer led me and two local French reporters into the press conference. Given the subject, I was surprised that it had attracted so little attention from the local media. We were taken into a vast chamber where about 50 local officials were seated around wooden tables and banks, with six administrators presiding over the group from a raised table in front.

The convener of the meeting was Étienne Guyot, the prefect of the Occitanie region, someone who represents the national government in a territory while also being responsible for numerous administrative functions. Guyot was joined on either side by representatives of VNF, the regional Occitanie government, and three officials from departments whose territories were crossed by the canal (Haute Garonne, Aude, Hérault). They were gathered to sign a contract that detailed their goals for securing the canal’s future and creating a formal structure to carry out those plans.

This alliance planned to spend $144 million to restore the canal and promote it, including eventually building a real bike path that spans the entire canal from Toulouse to Sète. Plans also called for creating a coherent tourism strategy to promote the canal, including the development of a branding campaign that would unify efforts to communicate about the canal and draw more visitors while convincing tourists to visit sites and towns near the canal in regions that are some of the poorest in France. The contract also established an “observatory” to learn how many people visit the canal, where they come from, and why they come. While officials like to estimate 1.5 million people visit the canal each year, they really don’t know, and even less is known about their economic impact.

After the signing, I told Guyot that having ridden the canal I was pleased to hear about the ambitious plans. I also asked him why it had taken so long to rally around such a project whose needs must have seemed obvious for decades. He explained that in part it was the complexity of drawing together so many players with different interests.

But he also acknowledged that there had been a general lack of “awareness” in terms of how dilapidated this historic asset had become and the immense opportunity it could represent. Beyond the money and the goals, the contract was a symbol that officials across the region recognized their responsibility to restore the canal and to help it regain at least some of its past glory as well as to leverage its full tourism potential.

Realizing this vision remains a daunting task, but the motivation to act is at least a recognition of the collective responsibility to ensure a better future for this waterway. Laurent Cyrot, director of the Canal du Midi project for the Occitanie regional government, explained that the contract is really a broad statement of goals. Yet to come is the critical but often tedious bureaucratic details of how committees will be created to pursue things like a tourist plan and branding, who will sit on them, and the method they will use to create consensus.

As for the bike path, its future is also hopeful but fuzzy. The platanes had deep roots, and as they were removed, they left the banks of the canal unstable. As thousands more trees may need to be ripped out and then younger ones replanted, it’s hard to predict just when the land along the canal will be in any condition to support the construction of a bike path, Cyrot said.

For now, the mobilization was a start and a win. Unifying at long last all these groups to work toward a common goal was a breakthrough. Perspectives on time here are long. Whether it takes 5 or 10 years to create a bike path, ultimately it will seem like nothing compared to the 27 years it took Riquet to build the canal using rudimentary tools, or the three centuries it has endured.

“We can do more to develop the economy around the canal and its magnificent works that are 350 years old,” Cyort said. “The idea is to see finally how we can attract people who live nearby as well as international visitors. We want to know how we can make them come and discover the canal.”

Flash Forward 5 Years

The best-laid plans, yada, yada, yada…

Four months after that meeting, a pandemic swept the globe and France went into national lockdown for 2 months. As in so many other aspects of life, Covid played havoc with timetables for the Canal project. But work continued to advance.

In July 2021, the Canal consortium officially unveiled at a ceremony with local leaders the first “Canal du Midi” brand including a logo and publicity campaign that sought to place the canal in the context of the great global wonders such as the Pyramids in Egypt.

They also introduced an early version of the first official website for the canal. A more complete site was rolled out last month. The site highlights the various cultural and historic sites along or adjacent to the canal.

Perhaps just as important, work is advancing on building a more robust and stable bike path. At a ceremony a few weeks ago, the Aude department (home of Carcassonne and the bulk of our Day 2 and 3 rides) announced that work had been completed on 25km of bike paths, including mixtures of pavement and reinforced packed gravel and official signage.

This is a great start, but just a start. Back in February, the group that had gathered in Toulouse back in 2019 reconvened a larger group to sign a new 5-year cooperation agreement which included more funds for building out the bike path and consultations on how to further develop the tourism strategy.

That tourism work includes creating committees that are identifying sites along the canal where interesting history occurred or are noteworthy for cultural reasons. Eventually, they will places signs and plaques along the route to tell those stories to visitors.

Following all of this progress is heartening. And it’s almost enough to convince me that maybe in the next couple of years, we should do our trip again on the New And Improved Canal du Midi bike path.

Chris O’Brien

Le Pecq

Read Day 1 here.

Read Day 2 here.

Breakfast was another highlight, something we don’t take for granted in a country where the first meal of the day is often just a disappointing croissant and café. Our host arrived with huge trays of grapefruit slices, apples, yogurt and granola, toast, hardboiled eggs, hot chocolate, orange juice, and coffee.

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We left early for what would in theory be the shortest and easiest day of the adventure. We planned to ride 21 miles to the village of Homps where we’d arrive mid-afternoon and give ourselves extended time to recuperate and celebrate passing the mid-point.

The going was again slow, at times as the path either seemed to disappear or tightened to a tire-width surrounded by untamed grasses that whipped our legs as we pedaled.

We had accepted this as part of the adventure by now and there was little grumbling, but it required focus to not skid off the path. We had to stay alert at various junctures to spot hand-made signs that would indicate when to cross a bridge and continue along the other side. But with few trees, we had some nice views of hillsides to the north, and glimpses of the Pyrénées mountains to the south.

As we rolled just east of the village of Le Redorte, the path took us to the foot of a stone bridge called Pont-canal de l'Argent-Double. The bridge runs along an aqueduct and serves as a good example of the ingenuity it took Riquet’s crew to create the canal. At this point, the canal crosses the Argent-Double River. The aqueduct carries the canal over the river, and the arches under the bridge allow any potential overflow water from the canal to tumble down into the stream below. For the 17^th century, it was an impressive bit of engineering improvisation.

Lights, Camera…Riquet!

As we were marveling at Riquet’s cleverness, just a few minutes after crossing the aqueduct we stumbled into the most unexpected moment of the whole trip. A crew of about 200 people was filming a movie about the life of Riquet. On the far side of the canal, a dozen actors wearing 17^th-century peasant garb were mulling around, smoking, and leaning on shovels as a woman with a walkie-talkie carried on a frantic conversation.

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Read Day 1 here.

Read Day 2 here.

Breakfast was another highlight, something we don’t take for granted in a country where the first meal of the day is often just a disappointing croissant and café. Our host arrived with huge trays of grapefruit slices, apples, yogurt and granola, toast, hardboiled eggs, hot chocolate, orange juice, and coffee.

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We left early for what would in theory be the shortest and easiest day of the adventure. We planned to ride 21 miles to the village of Homps where we’d arrive mid-afternoon and give ourselves extended time to recuperate and celebrate passing the mid-point.

The going was again slow, at times as the path either seemed to disappear or tightened to a tire-width surrounded by untamed grasses that whipped our legs as we pedaled.

We had accepted this as part of the adventure by now and there was little grumbling, but it required focus to not skid off the path. We had to stay alert at various junctures to spot hand-made signs that would indicate when to cross a bridge and continue along the other side. But with few trees, we had some nice views of hillsides to the north, and glimpses of the Pyrénées mountains to the south.

As we rolled just east of the village of Le Redorte, the path took us to the foot of a stone bridge called Pont-canal de l'Argent-Double. The bridge runs along an aqueduct and serves as a good example of the ingenuity it took Riquet’s crew to create the canal. At this point, the canal crosses the Argent-Double River. The aqueduct carries the canal over the river, and the arches under the bridge allow any potential overflow water from the canal to tumble down into the stream below. For the 17^th century, it was an impressive bit of engineering improvisation.

Lights, Camera…Riquet!

As we were marveling at Riquet’s cleverness, just a few minutes after crossing the aqueduct we stumbled into the most unexpected moment of the whole trip. A crew of about 200 people was filming a movie about the life of Riquet. On the far side of the canal, a dozen actors wearing 17^th-century peasant garb were mulling around, smoking, and leaning on shovels as a woman with a walkie-talkie carried on a frantic conversation.

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Read Day 1 here

We awoke in the Kapadokyato péniche to a rich breakfast of bread with various jams, hot chocolate, coffee served in a gaping bowl without a handle that the French prefer despite its impracticality, and finally granola and yogurt. We feasted below deck around a wooden table so large I tried to divine how they had squeezed it down here. Given the sparseness of our supplies, this meal felt luxurious, even a touch decadent to be sitting in a boat along the canal in a light-filled room. It was a great boost to our reserves of good humor, which were about to be tested.

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The plan for Day 2 was, on paper, only slightly less ambitious than Day 1. We would ride 28 miles to Carcassonne, the city of the famed fortress. There would be some gentle climbing to Port Lauragais, Riquet’s high point for the canal, where the path begins a gradual descent that continues almost all the way to the end.

From the start, there were indications that the next stage was going to be rougher. After mounting our bikes and saying our goodbyes, we crossed back over the stone bridge and then found it surprisingly difficult to locate the correct path again. There seemed to be several options of what appeared to be some kind of path running parallel to each other on the right bank. The well-paved path in Toulouse had turned into a sturdy dirt path toward the end of the previous day. Now there were just several narrow dirt tracks with no signs to guide us. We made several false starts, then doubled back, before finally finding the right route.

This correct path soon narrowed to the width of our bike tires. At other times we had to dismount and walk around large muddy puddles, even though it had not rained in several days. Progress was plodding, and our familial camaraderie was showing some slight fractures amid moaning about the conditions.

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Cassoulet-ville

We arrived at Castelnaudary around lunchtime with heavy legs and only a quarter of the way toward Carcassonne. Here the canal opens into a wide basin. Castelnaudary was among the biggest economic beneficiaries of the canal, evolving into a major port. Today, that big basin hosts more recreational water pursuits.

The town is best known as the capital of cassoulet, the region’s famed stew of white beans, sausage, and duck.

Riding into the city center, we found a local market set up in a parking lot selling roasted chickens along with fruit and vegetable stands. We stopped at a boulangerie for some bread and nearby found a shop where we bought a portion of cassoulet served in a red clay cassole pot. A heavy mid-day meal may not have been totally wise. But sitting on a bench near the outdoor market, the hearty food reinvigorated us as we tried to resist the temptation to overindulge.

A dangerous amount of inertia and contentment had seized us. Spending a lazy afternoon strolling around town exploring the white-stone façades seemed like a reasonable idea. It required a fair bit of rallying before we managed to climb back onto the bikes. Leaving Castelnaudary behind, we sped past the long basin along a paved bike path. Not far outside of town we were back on more challenging terrain that was still manageable.

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Tree Tragedy

We also began to notice the absence of large trees. It is this section that has been most transformed by a disease that has desolated the canal’s famed platanes or platanus acerifolia, a cousin of the American Sycamore tree.

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King Louis XIV’s desire to embrace projects of grandeur in the 17^th century left a legacy in France that includes the Chateau de Versailles and the Canal du Midi. Three centuries later, the two monuments have taken very different paths. Readers have no doubt heard of the first, but much less likely the second. Versailles remains a gleaming if garish jewel that draws hordes of international tourists. In contrast, the canal that stretches 150 miles across the southwest of France linking Toulouse to the Mediterranean Sea has grown tarnished from neglect and disease ravaging its signature canopy of trees lining its banks.

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While the canal may have fallen into obscurity outside the Southwest, it was ever-present in our daily lives, passing not far from our apartment in Toulouse and slicing an arc around the city center. At the mid-point in town, it passes under the vigilant eye of a white marble statue honoring its creator, Baron Pierre-Paul Riquet. A warm weekend afternoon often drew us to the canal’s banks for a walk or a bike ride.

After numerous such outings, and increasingly curious about the canal, we decided to embark on a 5-day trip to traverse the waterways to its coastal end during the April 2018 school holidays.

Once Upon A Canal

The canal was one of the world’s engineering marvels at the time of its construction in the 17^th century. Yet when I would mention to Paris friends that we were preparing for this trip, they would give me a puzzled look as if they were searching their memory banks for some reference point. Sometimes I found myself in the odd position of explaining this piece of their country’s history and geography to them but never really succeeding in conveying its allure.

Making such a trip sounded ambitious for a family of two middle-aged adults and two teenagers who were far from top biking condition. But the route is mostly flat, beginning with only the slightest of ascents and then descending gradually almost until the end. Trees lining the canal promised shade. And a regular interval of towns along the way offered plenty of flexibility in terms of the distance we would cover each day.

Still, our research hinted at some of the challenges awaiting us. Reliable English-language guidebooks or internet sites were hard to come by, and the French ones made references to the impassibility of certain stretches or the need to look for hard-to-spot signage to know when to change sides of the canal. The lack of a maintained bike path and clear tourist information was particularly surprising in France where tourism fuels the economy. Cities and regions of all sizes churn out massive promotional campaigns to attract visitors to the most minor of historic or cultural attractions. That somehow a genuine attraction such as the Canal du Midi had failed to warrant such comprehensive marketing attention and investments in tourism infrastructure seemed like a massive missed opportunity.

Even with these advanced warnings, we were still troubled at times by the state of much of the canal that was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. Thousands of disease-ridden trees that give the canal its distinctive canopy have been ripped out, with more cuttings planned as boosters search for funds to replant new ones. Perhaps even more ominous, the effects of climate change and regional growth are putting pressure on the complex water system that feeds the canal, which shares these water resources with local farmers and residents.

For all these dark clouds over its future, our trip along the canal still managed to instill a sense of its wonder and majesty. The Canal du Midi holds enormous potential to be the perfect ambassador for this region’s history, cuisine, and culture. Our five days of pedaling along its banks offered a chance to intimately discover the beauty that surrounds it and appreciate the passion and innovation that was required to build it. If it can be made more accessible to less adventurous riders, the Southwest of France could unlock a true treasure. “It’s completely forgotten,” Olivier Auriol, chief of Canal du Midi projects for the local Haute-Garonne government, told me. “We know it is exceptional and its history is important. But that has not been enough to ensure its notoriety.”

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Basket Cases

As tends to happen when living abroad, the obstacles appeared well before the trip. Bikes were our first priority. The previous year we had taken a 4-day bike trip across the Loire Valley in central France, a region where the biking economy is massive and companies that rent and organize your journey are plentiful. While renting in the Loire had been easy, we found the Canal du Midi offered few choices of rental options and limited flexibility. We decided instead to buy bikes.

A local sporting goods store was having a sale, so we purchased four gray and black Riverside 900 hybrid bikes. Such tasks are easily managed in the U.S., but in France, this required additional vocabulary which we had not thought to master in advance.

For example, in the U.S. the saddlebags that hang on the back of the bikes are called panniers, a mild corruption of panier, the French word for basket. Easy enough, we thought. Here’s a word we actually know! But when we kept telling the salesperson we wanted paniers, they gave us funny looks and kept explaining that it didn’t make sense for long bike trips. We kept insisting and resorted to hand gestures that probably looked vaguely obscene until a light went on. “Ah, you want sacoches,” a salesperson said and led us to the aisle where the saddlebags were found. In France, a panier is specifically the front basket.

We bought 2 sets of sacoches that could carry up to 30 pounds each and put them on the adult bikes to ease the burden on our teenage kids. This required precision packing in the days before the trip, limiting clothing changes, toiletries, and optional items like books to make sure we also had room for nonperishable snacks, a first aid box, and a minimalist bike repair kit. After much packing, unpacking, and re-packing and long debates about what constituted “essential” items, we had the bags stuffed, just to the point of being able to close them.

The day of the departure was a glorious April morning, blue skies without a hint of clouds. The itinerary for the first day called for riding 33 miles through a stretch that would climb almost imperceptibly about 175 feet. While this didn’t require vigorous pedaling, it also didn’t allow for much coasting.

After mounting the sacoches on the bikes, and checking everyone’s gear one last time, launching on this epic adventure meant simply rolling out from our apartment’s courtyard through the tunnel that leads to the massive wooden doors which open onto the street. After a quick right turn, we glided past the neighborhood’s red-bricked buildings. Just 5 minutes later, we reached the banks of the canal.

Turning southeast, the paved path ran along the right side of the canal. The canal’s reflective waters stretch about 60 feet across, met by sloping banks on each side. In Toulouse, the bike path that runs alongside has the feel of a festive city park. Parents pushing strollers, couples holding hands, and distracted singles walking their dogs while staring at their smartphones. Progress was slow as we zigzagged our way through the crowds while constantly ringing our bike bells, a task made awkward as we adjusted to the weight of the sacoches.

As we dodged pedestrians, we passed a series of péniches, the flat, 128-foot-long barges that were specially designed for the canal and its locks. These workhorses once ferried all sorts of goods up and down the canal and today are a reminder of an era when the canal was a far more vital economic engine for the southwest of France. Today, many have been refurbished into restaurants, tour boats, and in some cases houseboats.

Overhead, we were protected by the vaulting platanes, the trees with light-gray colored trunks and soaring branches that stretch out over the canal and cross with their siblings on the other bank, forming a spectacular canopy. This is the iconic view of the Canal du Midi, running for long stretches and featured in just about every postcard. We were grateful for the shade it offered, and the sense that we had entered into a world apart from the city that was slowly slipping away behind us. Eventually, the crowds thinned, and we found a rhythm that was both peaceful and exhilarating.

About 8 miles into the ride, we passed our first lock, the Écluse de Castanet. Two ivy-covered stone walls reached out from each bank toward the middle, where they supported two metal doors about 20 feet high. A red light signaled to boats traveling the same direction that the écluse was closed and filled with water to allow boats coming from the other direction to enter and descend. We climbed a short hill along the canal that brought us to the top of the écluse. On the other side of the metal doors, the stone walls bowed outward in the middle and then narrowed again around another set of doors.

Along the side of the path was a former customs house that had been converted to a restaurant bearing the name of the écluse. Already sweaty and trying to catch our breath, we looked with envy onto the terrace where patrons were sipping wine and idly cutting into their steak with pepper sauce. (We went back later on bikes later and enjoyed a wonderful lunch here).

There are 65 écluses along the canal, with some of their customs houses converted into B&Bs, snack shops, or restaurants of some kind. While the écluses have all been replaced in recent decades, the original ones were one of the key breakthroughs by Riquet, the 17^th-century baron and tax collector whose combination of money, madness, and genius created the canal.

Such a canal had long been a fantasy in France, a way to leverage commerce from the Mediterranean while also avoiding the pesky Spaniards and pirates to the south. Such notable names as Leonardo Da Vinci had taken a stab at the project but ultimately threw up their hands. It was Riquet of Béziers who proposed a workable plan that convinced King Louis XIV and his ministers to give the go-ahead in 1666. The king was enamored with the idea of sponsoring great engineering projects that would suggest the kind of technical daring that allowed the Romans to build aqueducts that can still be found throughout France today.

Riquet succeeded by solving two major problems. First, he created a system that drew water from the region’s Black Mountain to the north and funneled it into the canal. He did this initially by constructing a damn about 12 miles north of the town of Castelnaudary and creating Lake Saint-Ferréol, the largest such reservoir ever built in Europe at the time. The water runs downhill toward Port Lauragais, near the canal’s highest point. He also worked with his engineering team to design the hydraulic locks that used swinging doors and valves to fill and release water to move boats up and down the canal. While the French king agreed to underwrite the project along with the regional government, Riquet financed 20% of the project in exchange for ownership of the canal. A tax levied on trade was expected to generate huge returns for all.

Not surprisingly, numerous problems arose. Even with Riquet’s crew coming up with solutions, such as carving out a tunnel or aqueduct when needed, construction dragged on. Riquet died in October 1680, just a few months before the canal was officially opened in 1681, having spent nearly his entire fortune. Such was the grandeur of the endeavor that Ambassador Thomas Jefferson, traveling the canal in 1787 from its end up to Toulouse where it eventually was connected to the Garonne River that flowed to Bordeaux, was in awe of what was then called the Canal Royal du Languedoc.

Today, nearly all of the écluses sport an engraving saluting Jefferson’s journey up the canal. We read them to learn this bit of our own history whenever we paused at various customs houses for bathroom breaks, to replenish water, or for short picnics.

As we neared the end of Day 1, things had been remarkably tranquil, without any major incidents, and our gang of four was still in good spirits. We had worried about the kids’ attitudes and motivation toward this biking adventure, but instead found them so energized that our main problem was them racing far ahead and out of sight. The adults had a more measured pace, plus most of the gear, and we had to push ourselves to close the gap.

After about 5 hours of riding, we arrived at our hotel for the evening, a péniche called Kapadokya. Almost 100 feet long and 15 feet wide, the boat was built in Belgium back in 1939 and passed through several hands before being purchased by the current owners, Mado and Patrick Isaac. The hull was painted deep black, with the sideboard of the deck and a terrace painted a striking red, and sporting a large red and gold Occitanie flag over the bow. We crossed the canal on a small stone bridge to the other bank where the péniche was moored, locked our bikes, and were greeted by Mado, a short and energetic woman.

It was surprisingly spacious below deck, with one master bedroom for us that also had a shower and a slightly smaller 2-bed room adjacent to ours for the kids. After relaxing for a bit, we climbed back on deck at a table where we made an improvised dinner of the last of our provisions, including some cheese, ham, baguette, avocado, tomatoes, and Cliff Bars for dessert. Hardly the meal of kings, but we had worked hard for it and savored every bite as the sun set and applauded ourselves for having successfully navigated the first day.

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Tomorrow: Day 2

Chris O’Brien

Le Pecq

I’ve been writing about the early days of our lives in Toulouse.

You can read Part I here: Finding our apartment in the summer of 2014.

Part II: Learning to love that ‘shabby chic’ apartment despite its problems.

This is Part III:

Having found the apartment that would be our home in Toulouse, we faced the challenge of filling it. When we arrived in France, our original plan was to stay for 3 years. So we packed most of our belongings into the attic of our Oakland house and shipped one crate worth of stuff.

This was a nightmarish experience because we opted for a low-budget shipping service. Basically, we got a reinforced cardboard shipping container that one self-assembles and then packs. We were charged by size, not weight, and so the game was to cram as much stuff as humanly possible into a container that did not feel super solid. We drove a rental truck full of our belongings carefully selected from our home in Oakland to a warehouse on the San Francisco Peninsula where someone dropped a pile of cardboard and some straps on a wooden pallet outside for us and wished us luck.

Watching numerous YouTube videos on how to assemble such crates didn’t really prepare us for the task. Instead, we fumbled around in an attempt to put the container together, a task made even more daunting by the gale-force wind that swept across the parking lot and constantly undid our limited progress.

Eventually, we finished as the sun was setting and warehouse employees had grown impatient waiting for us. Among the stuff being shipped was only a limited amount of furniture: 2 leather chairs and a wooden table. It would take almost 3 months for the crate to arrive in Toulouse.

The rest of the furniture we would need to scavenge once we got to Toulouse. And considering that our apartment had twice the floor space as our Oakland house, this turned out to be an epic undertaking.

Let There Be Light Fixtures

As we visited apartments that summer, we learned that when the French leave, they take all the appliances, all the light fixtures, and sometimes even all the kitchen cabinets. Otherwise lovely apartments looked like they had been ransacked following a riot.

In our case, we had some luck because they had left the cabinets as well as a stove. But we still needed to buy a refrigerator, dishwasher, and washing machine. We managed to acquire all three used from a Spanish couple returning to Madrid who even helped me load them onto the truck and then carry them up 2 flights of stairs into the apartment.

The light fixtures would prove trickier.

The apartment had 12 rooms, each silently mocking us with a stream of wires hanging from the ceiling and a sad, solitary lightbulb dangling from the end. The need to constantly buy light fixtures has created a kind of fussy, fetishy culture in France around these objects with numerous boutiques throughout the city offering a fantastic array of choices.

Amassing enough light fixtures by buying them new could have cost a small fortune so we skipped these stylish shops. Instead, we found a few bargains at the Ikea just outside of town and gradually new friends donated more elaborate and unorthodox fixtures they had stored away.

Getting the light fixtures installed proved to be a chore. We called an electrician to put them in place. He arrived and quickly became dismayed that we only had 4 of the 12 fixtures. It didn’t make any sense to hang some, he explained, and said he would return when we had all of them. That would be more efficient, he insisted.

We begged him to at least hang one in the living room, a large chandelier-like fixture we had acquired. After several weeks, we still felt unsettled, what with a gaping hole in the ceiling and lightbulbs swinging above our heads. He relented, though made clear that this was not the right way to do things. It took us 9 months to scrounge all the fixtures and get them hung.

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We knew shockingly little about Toulouse before deciding to abandon our lives in California and move with our two kids to the Southwest of France.

Before arriving to look for an apartment in July 2014, there had been the obligatory reading of Wikipedia followed by a virtual cruise through the city center via Google Maps Street View. Rows and rows of light-colored brick buildings gave it a distinct hue, but from our home in Oakland, we had a hard time grasping what might otherwise distinguish the city.

Even in this digital age, there is no substitute for going to a place in order to learn about it, so that’s what we did. After fobbing the kids, (our daughter Kalian, 9, and son Liam, 11) off on some friends for a week, Jen and I boarded a plane in San Francisco.

I feel certain that our Lufthansa flight made record time for our connection in Munich. The flight was due to land late in the afternoon of July 13, and that very same night the FIFA World Cup final featured Germany against Argentina. The Germans have a well-deserved reputation for efficiency, but on this day had managed to turn that up to 11. We dashed through the deserted Munich airport and barely crossed another soul on the way to our connecting gate. The flight to Toulouse arrived 30 minutes earlier than planned, and we were soon checked into our hotel, Ours Blanc, a modest spot that once served as one of the Gestapo’s headquarters when the city was under occupation.

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While Americans like to believe that the French detest them, the memories of the two World Wars are fresh and the gratitude for America’s role is evident. The hotel overlooked Place Woodrow Wilson and the adjacent Allées President du Roosevelt. We had come a long way to be reminded that the relationship between our homeland and France is intimately intertwined.

With all the rushing, we hadn’t eaten and had arrived around 9 p.m., an awkward time to find dinner in France. Restaurants typically open around 7:30 p.m. for dinner, but this is not Spain where I’ve sat down for dinner at 11 p.m. There was a window for being served and we were in danger of missing it. The front desk said our best bet would be the Place du Capitole, just a 5-minute walk to the west.

Following these instructions brought us to the plaza that remains the heart of Toulouse. Bordering the western side of the plaza, the Capitole building stretches about 450 feet and is an Instagram-ready monument that the ruling council of Capitouls, dominated by local merchants, ordered built in the 12th century. With a neo-classical façade added in the 18th century, the building serves as the city hall today while the former dungeon just behind is now the tourism office. The name Capitouls references the city’s founding by the Romans, which remains a source of immense civic pride. At one time, this plaza would have been the northernmost point of the Roman walled city.

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Now, it’s ground zero for tourists. On the Southern side, Bibent is one of the city’s most renowned eateries, in part because of its flashy interior which mixes Baroque and neo-classical styles. Mirrors surround the dining room, bordered by columns adorned with swooning gods, and pastel paintings of cherubs floating in the sky. It’s so super-charged with decoration that one could imagine Bibent being single-handedly responsible for the rise of minimalism. Jean Jaurès, one of the fathers of French socialism, used to hang out here when he was deputy mayor. More recently, legend has it that Bibent is where three Serbian students who were attending university in Toulouse met in January 1914 to plan the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand which triggered World War I. At least, that’s what the Bibent menu says.

We were too late to be seated at Bibent, so we wandered to the eastern side of the plaza where a commercial arcade faces the Capitole. Lined with cafes that seem indistinguishable from each other, we chose one at random. Without realizing it, we had seated ourselves at Le Florida. After 15 hours of travel, we couldn’t escape the homeland.

The interior is a lavish Belle Epoque affair, probably the fantasy of what most Americans expect in Paris but is a bit atypical for this city which has kept its Medieval look. A swirling staircase in the middle is surrounded by plush red velour seats and booths. A stained-glass ceiling and paintings of dandies and elegant women give the impression that not much has changed since the late 19th century.

We opted instead for the terrace, where we managed to squeeze around a table to join hundreds of others watching the second half of the World Cup final on a TV perched above the waiters’ station at the neighboring bar.

Two things struck us almost immediately as we finally relaxed. First, though it was pushing 9:30 p.m., the sun was still setting, leaving vague traces of pink and blue light streaks in the sky. Second, it was wonderfully warm out. Our years in the San Francisco Bay Area had taught us to live without seasons. No snow in the winter, two months of a rainy season, seasonal Springs and Falls, and summers where the temperatures plunge to the 40s at night. Barbecuing in our backyard in Oakland obligated us to buy heat lamps and a fire pit and meant wearing heavy coats and jeans to make the summer evenings comfortable.

And so, the seduction began. Sitting on a terrace in Toulouse, enjoying a glass of red wine, and taking deep pleasure in the Mediterranean climate that made short sleeves a summer evening possibility again seemed to augur well for the future.

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The French Parliament has taken the first steps toward approving a law that would ban discrimination based on a person’s accent. Violations could be punished by a maximum of 3 years in prison and a fine up to €45,000.

This will no doubt bring a sense of justice to the large number of people in France who speak with regional accents but often feel a sense of disdain in a country dominated culturally, politically, and economically by Paris.

According to Ouest-France, an IFOP poll in January 2020 found that 16% of French people claimed to have been the victims of discrimination in hiring because of their accent. In France, this phenomenon is known as “la glottophobie.”

"It is about stigmatizing or treating a person differently, particularly regarding their access to a right or a resource, such as a job, using a linguistic pretext," Philippe Blanchet, a linguist and teacher at Rennes University, told Ouest-France.

The French are famously fastidious about their language. There is one correct way to say things in French, and any deviation is met with raised eyebrows. For teenagers, the official goal is “to perfect” one’s French by the end of high school. They are subjected to rigorous lessons that include such traditional exercises as the “dictée” where a teacher speaks or reads a passage out loud and students must write it exactly.

This push for homogeneity tends to paper over the reality that France has numerous regional accents, ranging from Brittany in the Northwest to Marseille in South to the Ch’ti in the Northeast. A popular French comedy, “Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis,” played with this notion of odd regional accents.

These French accents are nowhere near as varied as the difference between a New York City and Texas accent in the United States. Or the gap between a London and Glaswegian accent in the U.K. But to French ears (or Parisian ones, at least) there is a yawning chasm between French and whatever people in other regions are trying to speak.

As such, these accents can leave their mark. This past summer, the appointment of Jean Castex as prime minister caused a stir, in part, because he has a Southern accent. Indeed, several commentators at the time noted how unusual it was to hear someone with an accent at the highest ranks of government.

That leads to a lot of humor and jokes. But for many, there are practical consequences, according to National Assembly deputy Christophe Euzet, who comes from the Southern department of Hérault. In an interview with France Culture, Euzet explained why he began writing the bill over a year ago. Generally, people with accents in France are less likely to be promoted to upper management, invited to appear on television, or taken seriously in cultural contexts.

“I realized how much I had an accent when I started going out in Parisian academic circles,” he told France Culture. “I have found that every time I start to speak there is a smile. I have to show that I am serious.”

On November 25, the National Assembly took the initial step toward adopting the law by approving the first reading of the bill. On Twitter, Euzet sought to explain just what the law would — and would not — ban. For instance, he said jokes and humor would not be impacted. Rather, the main target is the workplace:

“This law opens the debate to evolve the mentalities based on stereotypes that are associated with accents and can sometimes lead to discrimination,” he wrote.

Blanchet, the researcher, told Ouest-France that beyond banning discrimination in official settings such as work or government, he’s hopeful the law will have a cultural impact.

“If there is a ban, then it's because society decided at some point that it was not ethically, morally, and socially acceptable to treat people like that," he said.

The drive from Toulouse to La Ferme de Souleilles took about 90 minutes and led us through some of our favorite landscapes in this southwestern corner of France. After a short stretch on the highway, we exited into the Lot-et-Garonne Department where a slowly winding road took us through the region's small and rounded hills.

The department remains deeply rural, and so we passed through occasional small towns and viewed scattered farmhouses in the distance. Within about 2 km of Souleilles, we began to see bright red and yellow signs indicating that we were headed in the right direction.

Pulling into the farm on a November weekend, we seemed to be the only ones visiting. This was a bit more than a random day trip for us. I had come to meet owner Yves Boissière as part of my research for a magazine story on foie gras that would be published in Alta magazine. While there are hundreds of foie gras farms in the region, I became intrigued with this one because it also happened to be home to the Museum of Foie Gras.

Walking into the boutique, we were surrounded by shelves loaded with the rich, fatty delicacy. Owner Yves Boissière greeted us with a smile that wouldn't have been seen if it wasn't so large. Boissière has a bold, white mustache that dominates his face and contrasts with the dark hair on top. When his mouth opens, out comes a thick regional accent.

The southern part of France was once dominated by the Occitanie people who spoke Occitan, a close cousin of Spain’s Catalan before a religious crusade led by French nobles imposed the invaders’ language and culture. Boissière’s punctuated accent sounds almost Spanish, and the store is decorated with Occitanie flags and symbols. Indeed, “Souleilles” is the Occitan word for “sunny.”

“We are proud of our Occitanie heritage,” he said. “Part of our project here is to transmit that history and culture.”

Foie gras education

Boissière opened the museum almost 10 years ago, in part to explain the history and culture of foie gras to French as well as international visitors. A ticket costs about $5 and he averages about 15,000 visitors annually.

That economic boost adds to the foie gras business to make sure the farm’s 17 employees, including his wife and children, can make a solid living and remain in the place they love. “This is the land of my family, this is the land of my parents, and this the land of my grandparents,” he said. “So we are able to stay here, and show the sweat and work that goes into making foie gras.”

For an hour, Boissière gave us a personal tour of the museum. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect, as I'd been lured into plenty of French tourist trips that sounded impressive in their description but turned out to be a few card tables and brochures. But Boissière's museum was very much worthy of that word.

The exhibits began with posters demonstrating foie gras' origin in Egypt, and then tracing it to the Romans, its spread by Jewish travelers, and its growth in France. Foie gras is about more than the foie gras. It's about the whole duck.

Boissière said foie gras is primarily made in the southwest because the mild climate is better for the ducks. And when they kill the duck, the goal is to use every part of it. Much of it is transformed into meat products, but even the feathers get used for products such as pillows.

“All food that we put on the table has its tradition and its history,” he said. Personally, that begins with his grandfather who was a prisoner of war in World War II, and who started the farm and to whom he’s dedicated the museum.

Fiercely proud of this territory, Bossière claimed that the people in this region are the healthiest in France. While the French in the north cook with butter, and those in the southeast cook with olive oil, this region favors duck fat. That, plus the local wines heavy with tannins, help unclog arteries. “We are the champions when it comes to cholesterol,” he said. “They call it the French paradox. But it’s not the French paradox. It’s the Gascogne paradox!”

The 'gavage'

Inevitably, the conversation came to the most controversial part of foie gras. The force-feeding, or "gavage" comes over the last 16 days of the duck's life. This follows a gradual increase in feeding over several weeks before the "gavage", which requires a tube to be inserted into the duck's throat and the farmer to pour the feed directly into its stomach.

Animal rights groups have called this cruel and have been fighting for the stuff to be banned. Indeed, such a ban went into effect just before we moved out of California. Bossière even shows us a copy of a local paper on display from 2015 hailing a federal court decision overturning the foie gras ban. Following several appeals, the ban has since gone back into effect.

When it comes to this subject, Bossière doesn’t get angry. Rather, the ban in his mind is an indicator of how the world has changed, and how people over time have become more distant from their roots, with little knowledge about how things are made or from where their food comes. The Egyptians discovered foie gras centuries earlier when they killed the animals for their livers. Animals such as ducks and geese naturally stuff themselves in anticipation of long winter migrations, so their stomachs are elastic and built to accommodate large feedings.

He contrasts the artisanal approach his small farm takes to that of industrial foie gras farms in Eastern Europe, which have expanded rapidly in recent years. In these operations, the gavage is shorter, and more intense, involving various hormones and chemicals to accelerate growth. The result is cheaper foie gras that has found its way into France's large supermarket chains.

“More than anything, it is about the change in society over the last 50 years," he said. "Because we were a much more rural society 50 years ago. And people today, if they want meat, they buy it and put it in the refrigerator. But 50 years ago, if you wanted meat or chicken, you had to bring it home and kill it and then remove the feathers and cook it. And you taught your children how to do this. Today, everything is done in a factory. And when people see the gavage, they don’t understand it. And the people are shocked by the gavage.”

Price vs. quality

He continued: “This is the dictatorship of the supermarket. It’s the supermarkets that want foie gras cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. And that poses a problem because then it has to be from a factory. Here, we are not affected by that because we do traditional gavage, and everything is done here.”

This is certainly true no matter where we have lived. People have little idea how their food is grown or processed and what it contains. For more than a decade, I lived in North Carolina where industrial hog farming had turned the eastern part of the state into a grotesque menagerie of hog farms and animal waste lagoons. Across the U.S. South, employees, increasingly immigrants, work in chicken processing plants in dangerous conditions creating food products that are also full of bacteria.

Since living in France, I've found it curious that American animal and food rights groups have fought for bans on foie gras, a food sold in only the smallest quantities in the U.S., and not on hog or chicken processing systems that play a far larger role in the average American's daily diet.

Boissière is hoping that by educating more people about his artisanal and family farm, a place where the animals roam free most of the year and feed themselves naturally for most of their lives, his emphasis on quality over quantity will change some minds about foie gras.

“My feeling is to return to quality, and things that are logical," he continued. "And find a way out of the dictatorship of price, price, price. Yes, it’s more expensive if we don’t use chemicals. But it’s necessary to think in a different way. Because this way, maybe people don’t get as sick and have to spend as much at the pharmacy later. The society of consumption pushes people to spend their money on things they don’t need. And if they just spent their money on eating well, and eating high quality, then this would be much more logical, and they would be happier and healthier.”

Stepping inside the Maison Samaran boutique across from Toulouse’s Victor Hugo Marché is more than just a chance to forage for the essential elements of Southwestern French cuisine. It is an opportunity to visit and pay homage to the Mecca of all things duck.

On a recent morning, I arrived and spent a few minutes browsing the display case full of magret de canard, duck thighs, duck confit, duck hearts, and dried duck. On the shelves, there were jars full of cassoulet, duck fat, patés, terrines, and rillettes. I had come to interview the head of this empire, Christophe Samaran who arrived a few minutes later, shook my hand warmly, and led me upstairs to his modest office.

I had requested an interview as part of a story I was writing for San Francisco-based Alta magazine about our misadventures with foie gras since moving from California to Toulouse almost five years ago. I figured if I was going to write about this gourmet substance, then I needed to speak to the man whose parents helped create the modern foie gras industry 50 years ago.

For Christophe Samaran, fiercely proud of his Southwestern roots, the culture, economy, and cuisine that has evolved around ducks, particularly foie gras, represents an essential part of this region’s identity, both the people and the land.

“It has always been a grand part of our cultural heritage,” he said. “We have always grown up with it. We always had foie gras.”

A Duck Revolution

While duck and its various specialties have long been a fundamental piece of France’s Southwestern region, their larger place in today’s modern landscape is due in large measure to Samaran’s parents, Danielle and Pierre Samaran. In 1968, Samaran recalled, they started the business by setting up a shop in essentially the same place as the current location of this boutique.

Ducks were already intertwined with the region’s cuisine. But this was largely also a seasonal food, with the ducks raised in the summer and spring, and then sold and butchered in the fall to make things like foie gras and magret de canard for the holiday and winter seasons.

Pierre wanted to make these products year-round staples.

“In arriving at Toulouse, he went to see all the restaurants to sell them poultry,” Samaran said. “And he told them Toulouse is the country of the Southwest, the country of the duck.”

So Pierre began organizing a network of farmers to raise the ducks throughout the year, with the promise that he could then help sell their products to local shops and restaurants. And gradually over the years, this network of producers began to shift their patterns to furnish ducks every month.

Today, Samaran sits at the heart of this industry in the Southwest.

There is now a booth in the Victor Hugo market, as well as the boutique across the street. Following extensive renovation around Victor Hugo, the street running in front of the boutique has been turned into a pedestrian-only walkway. The Samaran boutique now serves a variety of food. On a recent afternoon, I sat out there with a friend eating duck burgers and potatoes fried in duck fat.

Maison Samaran also has its own slaughterhouses and cannery in Tournefeuille where the ducks are processed and turned into various confections. There is also a market stand at Saint-Cyprien and Carmes markets. In addition, there are now shops in Tournefeuille, Sesquières, and rue de Remusat in Toulouse.

Altogether, there are about 48 employees. And beyond that, the company sits as the center of a network of farms raising the ducks that stretch across the Tarn, Haute-Garonne, and Gers departments that provide about 3,000 ducks a week, Samaran said. Besides selling directly to customers, Samaran ships across France, as well as to restaurants in Copenhagen and Hong Kong.

The Duck Fat Diet

Of course, the occasion of our conversation was the California ban on foie gras, which Samaran not surprisingly found disappointing. For one thing, he differentiates between large, industrial farming operations in some countries that use a far more intensive feeding process (the “gavage”) to fatten the animals more quickly. Samaran said all their operations and partners have deep respect for the animals, who are free to roam, and then experience a more gradual, less intense fattening process.

“I don’t defend them from the industrial gavage where they mistreat animals," he said. "Even if it is eaten by some, its quality is worth zero when it comes from places like Hungary or Bulgaria."

In addition to being free-range, they are fed strictly natural products like corn. “One must respect the animal and respect the product, something we insist on with all of those partners who raise the animals,” Samaran said.

As such, Samaran talks about his business as artisanal, rather than industrial, favoring quality over quality. That also means the resulting products are more costly.

“For the texture of the foie gras and the smell, it is also more expensive,” he said. “It’s about 30% more expensive, but the result for us was that we managed to create a superior brand compared to others.”

But Samaran’s passion for all of this runs deeper than someone just developing a business strategy. Maison Samaran is a great example of the way that people, the land (“terroir”), the animals, and the economy are all intertwined at a fundamental level. These things are inseparable. The things that are made and sold are spoken of with some reverence, of being of the “terroir.”

In the case of ducks, that link comes from the fact that the animals thrive in the Southwestern climate. It is not too hot in the summer, not too cold in the winter, and not too rainy in places like Gers. The land and the feed add to this ripe combination that seems to form a bond between ducks and the Southwest. “I don’t think it’s chauvinism to say the best ducks come from the Gers,” Samaran said.

Not only do those ducks provide a living, but the conventional wisdom in the Southwest is that they also are good for your health. It is true that duck fat is higher in what doctors consider to be the “good cholesterol,” better than say butter or even olive oil. People down here insist that citizens in the Gers and surrounding departments live the longest in France because they cook everything in duck fat. Now, I’ve never been able to find any statistics to support that, but it probably wouldn’t matter in this region because it has simply been embraced as an incontrovertible truth.

“It’s very good for your health,” Samaran said. “The people of the Gers live the longest because they cook with duck fat and it doesn’t block the arteries.”

As the interview ended and we were walking out, Samaran was very insistent on this last point. He reached onto one of the shelves, grabbed a jar of duck fat, and pushed it into my hand, insisting I take it home as a gift. He said it was the only way to cook potatoes.

“Tell your wife that she should try this little pot of fat,” he said. “You take a spoonful and put it in the frying pan."

Of course, we did try it. And it was glorious. So I have been fully converted to the duck fat cause. And even if the health claims are less than rock solid, the taste is so good that I think that becoming a lifelong test subject seems well worth the risk.

Riding our bikes along the Canal du Midi to eat lunch at L'Écluse de Castanet is one of those perfect days that reminds us why we moved to France.

We had been meaning to do this for just about forever, but sometimes the grind of daily life gets you in a rut. Fortunately, my wife had a fit of inspiration and suggested an outing at the last minute. Pulling away from the inertia of routine is never easy, and work's siren song is often hard to ignore. That is particularly true for us eat-lunch-at-our-desk Americans.

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Still, we roused ourselves and took our bikes out of the storage shed below our apartment. In just a few minutes, the city was slipping away from us as we pedaled along the paved path that hugs the Canal du Midi.

L'Écluse de Castanet is about 11 km southeast of Toulouse, about a 30-minute ride at a leisurely pace. "Écluse" is the French word for "lock," and the restaurant is located next to the first écluse outside of Toulouse.

We made a reservation for 12:30 p.m., and fortunately, that was enough to beat the crowd and get a table on the terrace. After locking our bikes nearby, we were seated by our waiter who was smiling, friendly, and eager to speak English when he heard our terrible French tumbling off our lips.

After ordering, the waiter asked what we wanted to drink. The question hung there for a moment, as we looked at each other and rapidly calculated the stakes. We still had to work in the afternoon. A heavy meal plus the bike ride back would be challenging enough and a recipe for afternoon sluggishness and a productivity killer. Throwing a glass of wine on top of that seemed reckless and likely to ensure a lost afternoon.

"Yes," we said. "We'll have some wine."

It was the right answer because this led to another profoundly life-changing moment. The waiter beckoned for us to stand up and follow him. "You know you can try all the wines first and then pick the one you want," he said, as if this was indeed something the entire Francophone world knew and that we obviously should have known as well. Of course, in more than four years in France, we had never been invited to try the wines at a restaurant before buying one.

Having now done so, let me just say this should be the law.

The waiter led us to a shelf and a refrigerator and briefly gave us an overview of the reds, whites, and rosés. Then he handed us two classes and invited us to try as much as we wanted and then to let him know which one we wanted. He left us, and we stood there stupefied a moment, trying to make sure we had understood that we had been left alone with about 50 wines and the potential for unlimited tasting.

One glass of wine already seemed like the height of folly. Now we were basically confronted with an all-you-can-sip wine bar. Trying to find a reasonable strategy, I decided to try sips of three, which I poured as delicately as I could. The bottles had stickers on them with matching stickers on the shelf to tell you the prices. After the tasting, I settled on a Saint-Émilion and we returned to our table after placing our wine order.

Our food arrived in short order. My wife had ordered the menu, and so she started with a calamari dish.

That was followed by the fish of the day. I am embarrassed to admit that we had no idea what it was beyond some kind of white fish. Such is life in France. Sometimes you get tired of asking questions and you just eat.

I ordered the entrecôte off the menu with a pepper sauce and a potato gratin. Everything was perfect, and it was probably one of the best cuts I've had in France. Cooked poorly, entrecôte can be fatty and chewy. In this case, it all seemed to melt as soon as I began to chew.

Finally, we shared her dessert, a fondant au chocolat with cream. Compared to all those poor suckers picking at a sandwich at their desk, this seemed like we had fallen into a decadent alternative reality.

Considering the restaurant's location, which manages to feel remote, the terrace was packed. In fact, the restaurant is not so far from Labege and is accessible by car as well for nearby office workers who are desperate to escape strip mall fare. The inside seemed cozy enough, but with the sun and clear skies, clearly, almost everyone wanted to be outside.

Of course, when it was over, we were faced with the dreaded return, which was not as painful as feared, yet still left us sapped. After storing the bikes, we made gameful attempts at work before succumbing to the welcoming sofa and an afternoon nap. Living the French life, after all, is hard work.

Tourism is a serious business in France. So this week, the Tourism Office of the Haute-Garonne Department held its annual press conference to explain its strategy for marketing its corner of France and attracting those economically important tourists.

In a Department that stretches from the cosmopolitan city of Toulouse to the upper reaches of the Pyrénées, it's a varied stretch. But seducing those tourists is critical, particularly for those small, independent businesses that produce local delicacies or run lodging of some sort.

To that end, this year's promotional focus will be: The Secret Haute-Garonne. Yes, people know about the big mountains, the Canal du Midi, and la Ville Rose. But there's so much more that even many locals, who account for over half the tourists, don't know about it.

Here are 5 "secret" places to visit in Haute-Garonne mentioned this week:

Félix Trombe Cave Network

This is France's longest cave network and goes to depths of more than 1,000 meters. It can be spectacular, but it's also not for beginners or casual hikers. There are 53 points of entry, many of them just narrow crevices, and it’s advised to connect with one of many guides in the regions.

Nostradamus and Martres-Tolosane

The town is known for its pottery community and for being a famous archaeological site of the Gallo-Roman era. But it holds another claim to fame. That great future forecaster Nostradamus has a prediction that some have interpreted to mean there is a great treasure buried beneath this town.

Saint-Rome

This small village boasts an unusual history and architecture. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Marquis de la Panouse inherited this land. Taking inspiration from some of the utopian ideals that were being incorporated into some workers' cities at the time, the Marquis had more than 20 buildings constructed for employees. The houses mix such styles as Flemish, Moorish, Scandinavian, and Baroque. Definitely a strange collection that stands out in the Southwest of France.

Des petites filles modèles à Verfeil

Les petites filles modèles (or the English version: "Good Little Girls") is a children's book written in 1858 by the Countess of Ségur. It was the second in a trilogy.

The titular characters were inspired by real-life Madeleine and Camille de Malaret from Verfeil, and who are now buried there. There is a very small museum dedicated to the book and the girls. The first book in the series was made into a film in 2016, "Les malheurs de Sophie," which brought some renewed attention to the little town and its "Petites Filles."

La Cathédrale de Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges

The cathedral has Romanesque-Gothic architecture, Renaissance windows, carved wooden choir stalls, and a 16th-century organ. It was a stopping point centuries ago for a pilgrimage. And getting to the church will take you through the medieval town which is spectacular in its own right.

Driving about an hour southeast from Toulouse, a short hop off the highway just before Carcassone puts one right in the middle of the Aude Department. Beyond the famous fortress, the Aude produces fantastic wines and offers compelling views of the Pyrénées.

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