Toulouse – The Rose Centre for Earth and Space

Aug. 5, 2010 - PRLog -- The fourth largest city in France, it is ideally situated in the heart of the southern region of the country between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean.  There are over 400,000 inhabitants and the temperature is similar to that of Mediterranean areas.

Toulouse has been at the heart of the European aerospace industry for the past 20 years. Here lies the headquarters of Airbus, Galileo positioning system, the SPOT satellite system, and CNES's Toulouse Space Centre (CST), the largest space centre in Europe.  Thales Alenia Space, Europe's largest satellite manufacturer, and EADS Astrium Satellites, EADS's satellite system subsidiary, also have a significant presence in Toulouse.  Over 400,000 citizens work in that industry with Airbus/EADS are the largest employers in the region.  Thanks to this economic boom the city has remained largely untouched.  

Airbus offers tours that show you the facilities; the tour roughly lasts for about an hour and gives you a detail about the company history, also gives you a look at the A380 production line.  Photography on the tour is strictly forbidden and you will need to bring photo identification plus if you do decide to go be aware to book ahead.  The 'space city' is another of Toulouse's attraction that focuses on aviation.  It isn't considered as a museum though it has been called a scientific theme park without rides.  He you will find some replicas of spacecraft’s, other air and space related vehicles and other exhibits which some are interactive.  This is a great place for families especially kids.

This is a city that lies on the Garonne River is on an ancient Roman settlement, today any of the buildings that are found on the smaller streets relate to their Roman counterparts.  As many of them are made from Roman styled red bricks and this is what gives the city its nickname La Ville Rose (The pink city). The Roman brick is a known as Foraine and these warm the city with tones of gentle pinks to the most flamboyant oranges, thus this city can boast some of the most unique looking villas in France.  

In the past roughly around the middle ages, Toulouse was one wealthiest cities in France, this is due to the sale of blue colouring which is pastel extracted from woad plants.  This was only broken when the Portuguese began to import indigo to Europe, around 50 hotels and mansions still bear witness to the wealth.

It has the joint third largest university campus in France with Lille; the university is world renowned and was founded in 1229 making it the oldest university in Europe.  It plays host to a diverse and rich culture with its ancient looking buildings and monuments such as the capitole de Toulouse and the banks of the Garonne.  The city centre is small but is easy accessible to most places by foot such as downtown area.

Toulouse is a beautiful city which has a booming economy mainly thanks to the aviation economy.

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