Quotes About Toulouse

Toulouse opened my eyes as a player and as a person. I returned to Wales 10 times better for the experience. I admit that when I went there I was not life-savvy: I was a wild child who lived life instinctively. I would walk past a building and not even notice it.

After the Spanish Civil War against Franco, a group of us got together: a group of well-to-do people who were sympathetic to the lost cause of a Republican state. We bought a convent in Toulouse and converted it into a hospital run by the Unitarians. It took care of the Spanish refugees who fled to Toulouse.

Toulouse expanded my game. You were given a freedom to play and express yourself on the field. Toulouse is the biggest club in Europe, rugby's equivalent of Real Madrid. Their game has always been about offloading and running but it is also physical, the complete 'package. It was always exciting, no matter how close a game was.

Around Bordeaux the landscape is lush and verdant, then towards Toulouse it gets drier, sunnier and hotter. The food changes too.

In Toulouse, you immersed yourself in the culture of the place.

Le Championnat is very balanced and of high quality. There are teams like Monaco, Marseille, and Lyon but also Lille, Nice, and Toulouse, who are strong.

These Parisians came, one from Toulouse, another from Limoges, the third from Cahors, and the fourth from Montauban; but they were students; and when one says student, one says Parisian: to study in Paris is to be born in Paris.

The rugby team is a massive part of the city and generates a real passion but there is also far more to Toulouse. I learned not only to respect the history of the club but also the area and I soon came to appreciate 'buildings and structures.

She looked up, eyes bright. 'On the first day, before things became intolerable, an overweight, middle-aged woman from Toulouse – a statistician – whom no one paid any attention to gave a very interesting talk on what she called '"triangulation",' she said, pronouncing the English word with a French accent.