La Fête Nationale

Since Dave and I missed all the Canada Day celebrations on July 1st, we decided to check out La Fête Nationale (or Bastille Day to us Canadians) on July 14th. The day was pretty low key, but in the evening we went downtown to check out the concert and fireworks that were being held. When we first arrived around 7pm there weren't many people out and about yet, so we decided to go for a little wander around the town and check out some of the streets we hadn't explored yet. We came upon the Basilica of St. Sernin. Dave and I had actually taken a tour of this Basilica when we were visiting Toulouse last August in anticipation of our move. It's a beautiful Basilica and has a really cool crypt in it. We wandered around the outside and took a few pictures.

After leaving the Basilica we happened to come upon an English Pub called The George & Dragon that had some English signs. We grabbed a couple of beers and relaxed for a bit from our walk. It was a nice pub and and there seemed to be a few groups of young people too, so it might be a good spot to hang out one night. Also, there were signs for a quiz night on Wednesdays, so we were pretty excited about that and will definitely be returning to defend our title of quiz champions from our nights at Western's Grad Club back home.

After finishing our beers we headed back to the main stage where all the Fête Nationale celebrations were supposed to take place. The square went from barely any people there when we first arrived, to totally jam packed! It was awesome! There were people everywhere enjoying the french music concert and having drinks in the streets (I have to say, the nice thing about France is that you can enjoy a beer in the streets and nobody cares). We bought a couple of beers from a vendor on the street, they had vendors all over selling canned beers and even some pop up bars selling draft beers. The concert was fun, but was all in French. It was still enjoyable, but the highlight was definitely the fireworks, which were set to music from a drummer on the concert stage. They were really good and it was a fun night.

The only thing I will warn you about is that unlike in Canada where they set up a section of port-a-potties for big out door events like Canada Day, the French do not set up things like this. The only place to go to the bathroom is a restaurant if you are a paying customer or one of the pay toilet stations outside that only have one toilet in them, cost a euro or so, and on a day like this had a massive line. Needless to say, after having a couple of beers I had to pee more than I've ever had to pee in my life. I actually thought to myself "oh my god, I'm 27 years old and I'm going to pee my pants...I'm actually going to pee my pants" haha. I knew I wouldn't make the metro journey all the way home, so we popped into our favourite pub De Danu, grabbed a drink, and I used the washrooms! It was glorious! I've never had to pee so bad in my life. De Danu definitely came to my rescue.


It was a fun night and it was neat to see how the French celebrate their Fête Nationale.

Until next time....

Au revoir