Our baby isn’t a baby anymore! In fact he’s not even a child!
Fifteen years ago he celebrated a birthday in Paris and we gave him a wooden puzzle from Switzerland. Today one of his presents was a small 100 piece puzzle we had bought in Paris.
We sleep in, then walk to three patisseries looking for the perfect cake, before returning to Patisserie Comte, on account of them having seating. It is a good choice. Rather than one single cake, we order a selection of four cakes, a chocolate flat, a pear tarte, a Saint Honore and a lime slice, along with hot chocolates and a grape juice.
They are so good, especially the lime slice! We are so full after our breakfast celebration.
Our sight for today is the Aeroscopia Museum, about an hour away by a combination of metro and tram. Toulouse has a long relationship with French aviation and is now home to one of Airbus’ major factories, assembling the A320, A330, A350 jets and the ATR 42 and ATR 72 turboprops. Before that it was the A300, A380 and Concorde.
Unfortunately, there are no English tours of the Airbus factory coinciding with our stay, so we will have to make do with the Aeroscopia Museum.
Google Maps’ directions to the museum are deceptive, sending us one light rail stop too far and making us walk a long path back. It is cold and drizzling, very different weather from yesterday. B bought a small umbrella from a variety store this morning. We always seem to buy, rather than bring, umbrellas.
Aeroscopia is visible by the aircraft parked outside, a selection of Airbus (Airbuses?). Today is quiet, so there is no issue buying tickets on the spot.
We enter a massive hanger. The first aircraft is a Super Guppy with its neck opened at 90 degrees to display the cavernous storage space used for transporting aircraft components from across the different Airbus sites. The Super Guppy can trace its heritage back to the B-29 Stratofortress that dropped the atomic bombs in World War 2.
There is also an Airbus A300-B4, the first Airbus passenger jet and the one that ushered in twin engined widebodies with centre rows of seats.
But it is the Concorde, one of only two supersonic passenger jets ever in service, that attracts the most attention. I have only seen it fly once, by chance from a distance at Sydney Airport. You can enter the cabin of the Concorde and two things strike us. How narrow and low the cabin is and how tiny the windows are. Really, really tiny.
The Concorde could fly up to 60,000 feet, 50% higher than our 787 we flew to France in usually cruises at.
There are a number of other military and civilian aircraft on display, including the Saab Viggen, SEPECAT Jaguar, Bought F-8 Crusader, Dassault Mirage IIIC and Lockheed F-107 Starfighter, MiG-15 along with French trainers, business jets and propeller craft. Information boards explain the history of French aviation and there are numerous models. My favourite is the giant LATE 631 Hydravion seaplane with six propeller engines.
There’s also a giant Lego X-Wing on the floor.
Outside the museum is the largest passenger aircraft ever built, the Airbus A380. The aircraft on display is the first, used for test flights. Both the top and bottom decks can be visited, which contain test equipment, exposed wiring and various seating and fitout concepts. It’s a very different experience from the Qantas and Emirates A380s we’ve flown on.
Other aircraft on display, though not open for cabin visits, are the ATR 42, ATR 72, A320, the Super Guppy replacement, the recently retired MegaMind shaped Beluga and the elegant A340-600. On the other side of the museum are a Concorde in Air France livery and a Caravelle jet with their distinctive cabin windows. Out the front is an Airbus A400 transport.
I highly recommend a visit to Aeroscopia for any fan of aviation, or even if you have just a bit of an interest. The scale of the aircraft themselves are impressive enough to make the visit worth it.
Unfortunately, the attached shop is rather bare of unique gifts, but we get Alex a Beluga model as an additional birthday gift.
It’s now well after lunch and the surrounding area is bare of options, so we just go to the Aeroscopia restaurant. The main meal service is over, so it’s just chicken and chips and a duck croquet with salad for a late lunch.
By the time the light rail and metro deliver us back it is too late for the other sights. We do a bit of shopping, then head back to the hotel to rest. I’m getting a migraine and the others are also exhausted.
We arrive back to find Alex’s bed decorated with balloons and a bag of chocolates on it! The room may be basic, but the hotel owners are wonderful!
Later, we head out late to a laundromat to wash clothes. None of us is feeling particularly hungry, at least not enough for a decent French meal. I send the other two to a Thai restaurant around the corner as they have no space for three and I am watching the washing dry. It had better finish on this last cycle because this laundromat is closing in 15 minutes!
I have about 5 minutes left on the clock when I get out. No dinner for me, all the fast food kitchens have closed. I like aviation museums. I hate doing the laundry.