In the city centre, these “secret passages” allow you to save time or discover Toulouse in a different way
By David Saint-Sernin
Published on
These are passages so discreet that you don’t necessarily know them and yet, when you walk in the city center, they allow you to save time or discover Toulouse in a different way.
The passage Grands Boulevards
The most commercial of them is located at 3, bis of the boulevard de Starsbourg. This is the Passage des Grands Boulevards.
To find the entrance, you have to pass the Burger King at the corner of the Roosevelt alleys, go a few meters on the sidewalk of the boulevard de Strasbourg before turning left.
Through this narrow passage, there are a few shops, a jeweler, a mobile phone repairer, a barber, a café…
The Passage des Grands Boulevards allows you to come out at 10 rue d’Austerlitz.
Passage Saint-Jérôme
This is also a very commercial passage since for those arriving in Toulouse, it is quite simply the entrance to the Saint-Georges shopping centre, one of the two shopping malls in the city center of Toulouse.
There was a time not so long ago when this passage was a very direct shortcut between the Rue d’Alsace sector and the Boulevard Carnot.
The passage indeed ran in a straight underground line, between two rows of shops, towards the boulevard.
Since the end of the renovation works of the shopping center, the path has been changed and it is now necessary to make a small detour to reach the boulevard.
The traffic plan for Passage Saint-Georges in March 2019, then at the end of 2020 after the works modifying the configuration of the shopping center:
Less direct, the shortcut nevertheless remains useful in summer for cycling while cooling off.
A door to find the narrowest street
There, we are no longer in the business at all… At first glance, this street starts like yet another residential entrance door to rue Saint-Rome. It is only if you slow down that you can let yourself be carried away to discover rue Bédelières, the narrowest street in Toulouse.
The discovery begins by passing under a form of porch. After this passage, we have practically entered another world. Enclosed between two fairly tall buildings, the street never receives the sun’s rays.
Rue Bédelières is only 61 meters long and connects Rue Saint-Rome to Rue Tripières where you can find the restaurant Le May.
From Victor-Hugo to Saint-Sernin, via Périgord
Going through Périgord to go from Victor-Hugo to Saint-Sernin does not look like a shortcut at first glance. You will have understood it all the same, it is not a question of the department we are talking about but of the superb library of Périgord.
Along the building built by the architect Montauriol there is a pedestrian passage that allows you to go from rue Montauriol to rue Bellegarde in a few strides.
In return for the time saved, we encourage you too much to spend a head in the formidable library of Périgord, acclaimed by students.
This rue Neuve which is also a dead end
From the Grand Rond to the Carmes, rather than following the classic (and magnificent) route of rue Ninau, place Saint-Etienne, then rue Croix-Baragnon, it is possible to take a less well-known route along the rue Neuve, rue Perchepinte, rue Mage, rue d’Aussargues and rue José Félix.
This route allows you to discover Rue Neuve, one of the narrowest streets in Toulouse and also one of the most charming.
The most recent shortcut: In the heart of La Grave
hubbub from the Charles-de-Fitte alleys to the Saint-Pierre bridge There is a path that allows you to avoid the traditional detour via rue Réclusane or the central square of Saint-Cyprien.
A shortcut, which has existed since 2017, and which offers a significant time saving, but which above all allows you to discover the emblematic site of La Grave located on the left bank from another angle. A much photographed site from the banks of the Garonne but which until recently was very closed in on itself.
Finding this path, opened in autumn 2017, requires a bit of curiosity since it begins in the Raymond VI garden which adjoins the Musée des Abattoirs. Since the summer of 2017, a passage was created in the medieval city wall.
This breach leads to the internal traffic lanes in La Grave. It then takes longer for several buildings to reach a large garden.
After walking along the garden, the walker approaches the dome of La Grave, goes around the Saint-Joseph Chapel which is now open to the public.
He leaves the site by the porch leading to Place Lange, which has been renovated as part of the embellishment project for Port Viguerie.
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