Bizet’s Carmen in Toulon
Whatever else you might have heard about Toulon, you should be aware that it has a gorgeous nineteenth century opera house — one of the largest opera houses in France Read More …
Category: Toulon
Guided walking tour of Toulon
Before I went to Toulon I booked a guided walking tour through the website of the Toulon tourist office. It was a two-hour tour, in French, called A la découverte Read More …
Vauban in Toulon
In 1679, the great military engineer Sébastien Le Prestre, marquis de Vauban (1633-1707), wrote that the harbor of Toulon was “the most beautiful and the most excellent of the Mediterranean Read More …
Théâtre Liberté
In 2001, after the city elections that removed the right-wing Front National from power in Toulon, the new mayor began working with the mayors of eleven nearby towns to form Read More …
Cycling in and around Toulon
Each year the French Federation of Bicycle Users gives two awards to cities or regions in France. These are the Golden Handlebars (Le Guidon d’Or) for the best local bicycle Read More …
By train to Toulon
Unlike Victor Hugo, who traveled from Marseille to Toulon by stagecoach in 1839, I came by train. His excuse was that the railroad didn’t even reach Toulon until twenty years Read More …
The Bagne prison colony
From 1748 to 1873 Toulon was the site of a brutal prison colony called Le Bagne Portuaire de Toulon. An exhibition on this prison colony was shown at the Naval Read More …
Harbor tour in Toulon
Several companies offer boat tours of the harbor and the military port in Toulon. The one I chose (for no particular reason) was called Bateliers de la Côte d’Azur. The Read More …
Place de la Liberté
This “Liberty Square” in Toulon is a good place to ruminate on the ambiguities of the concept of Liberté, especially since Toulon in former times was best known not as Read More …