Explorar Toulouse

A Dominican convent begun in 1230 in the city where the order was founded, whose brick church shaped the southern French Gothic style. In the choir a single column carries 22 vault ribs, known as the palm tree, and the relics of Thomas Aquinas lie in the church; the cloister, chapter house and Saint-Antonin chapel complete the visit.

A Romanesque basilica of brick and stone built from about 1080 over the tomb of Saint Saturnin, the first bishop of Toulouse, and a stop on the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela. An octagonal bell tower rises above the crossing, and the crypt and ambulatory hold the relics of saints in a series of reliquaries.

The Hôtel d'Assézat is a Renaissance mansion built from 1555 to 1562 to plans by Nicolas Bachelier for the woad merchant Pierre d'Assézat. Its courtyard façades of brick and stone carry superimposed classical orders below a tall stair tower. The rooms house the Collection Bemberg, art from the 15th to the 20th century including over 30 works by Bonnard.

The seat of the Archbishop of Toulouse, built over several centuries and known for its unusual plan: a 13th-century nave in southern Gothic brick meets a wider, northern-style choir begun around 1272 on a different axis. The west front pairs a rose window with a massive bell tower, and Pierre-Paul Riquet, builder of the Canal du Midi, is buried inside.

The Muséum de Toulouse is the city's natural history museum, opened to the public in 1865 beside the Jardin des Plantes. Renovated and extended by the architect Jean-Paul Viguier, it reopened in 2008 with galleries on the Earth, the history of life and human impact, drawn from more than 2.5 million objects, and includes the Henri Gaussen botanical garden.

A science centre devoted to spaceflight on the eastern outskirts of Toulouse, opened in 1997 on the initiative of the city with the French space agency CNES among its partners. Its park holds full-scale models of the Ariane 5 rocket, the Mir space station and a Soyuz, beside a planetarium, interactive exhibitions and a mock-up control room.

An aviation museum in Blagnac, beside the Airbus assembly halls at Toulouse airport, opened in 2015. Its curved exhibition hall and outdoor tarmacs display civil and military aircraft, among them two Concordes, an A380, an A400M, a Caravelle and a Super Guppy, and several cabins can be walked through.