Explore Toulouse

The town hall of Toulouse, named after the capitouls who governed the city from the 12th century. Its 135-metre façade of pink brick and stone on the Place du Capitole was completed in 1760 to designs by Guillaume Cammas; the first-floor reception rooms, including the painted Salle des Illustres, can be visited, and the building also houses the Théâtre du Capitole.

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.

The Musée Saint-Raymond is Toulouse's archaeological museum, opened in 1892 in a brick college building of 1523 beside the Basilica of Saint-Sernin. Its collections run from prehistory to the early Middle Ages, including Roman marble sculpture and imperial portraits from the villa of Chiragan, and the basement shows remains of an early Christian necropolis.

The fine arts museum of Toulouse, opened in 1795 in a 14th-century Augustinian convent. It holds Romanesque and Gothic sculpture from the city's churches and paintings up to the early 20th century, shown around the cloister and in galleries added in the 19th century by Viollet-le-Duc and his pupil Darcy. Parts remain under restoration.

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 Pont-Neuf is a brick and stone bridge over the Garonne in Toulouse, begun in the 1540s and opened in 1632, which despite its name makes it the oldest bridge across the river in the city. Its seven arches rest on piers pierced with round openings that let flood water through, and it was the only Toulouse bridge to withstand the flood of 1875.

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 museum on the former Toulouse-Montaudran airfield, opened in December 2018 in the restored buildings from which the Latécoère lines and then the Aéropostale flew mail from 1918. It tells the story of pilots such as Jean Mermoz, Henri Guillaumet and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry through their equipment, archives and aircraft replicas.

An exhibition hall beside the old runway of the Montaudran airfield, opened in 2018 to house the giant mechanical creatures of the street-theatre company La Machine. Operators set the machines in motion for visitors, and Astérion, a 14-metre minotaur of wood and steel, carries passengers on its back along the Piste des Géants.

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.