This is a mistake that happens regularly in Toulouse: tourists confuse old Toulouse with the city of Vieille-Toulouse.
Only when Georges, a 60-year-old English tourist, found himself on the slopes of Pech-David, did he realize that he was not in the heart of the Pink City! “I didn’t make the connection and I didn’t imagine I’d be so far from the historic heart of Toulouse,” he admitted with a smile in his very British accent. During his recent trip to our region, with the intention of discovering Old Toulouse, he found himself in Old Toulouse rather faint. Foreigners who are poorly adapted to the genders of our French words often lose their teeth and confuse the name Vieille-Toulouse, which is located ten kilometers from the Pink City.
Tolosian or Toulouse?
The inhabitants of Vieille-Toulouse are also called Tolosiens. With a few letters, we could replace them with people from Toulouse: “It’s rarer, but even the French make mistakes! » confirms Frédéric Laffitte, owner of the Carpe Diem guesthouse. If Vieille-Toulouse is indeed the former location of the city of Toulouse, this small town with its beautiful residences does not at all resemble the historic streets of old Toulouse. And yet… Long before the city we know today, Toulouse was, until the 3rd century BC, limited to a Gallic oppidum located at the mouth of the Ariège in the Garonne, namely Vieille-Toulouse. It became a center of trade in the 1st century BC. JC with the arrival of the Romans. Then, in the 1st century AD, the site was abandoned in favor of the current city center of Toulouse, where a new Roman city would be built.