Toulouse Posted December 9, 2005 at 4:42 pm

This past week I traveled to Toulouse, France, on business to receive training and discuss plans for a near-term integrated display system project. It’s essentially a display with a PC attached to it; think rugged iMac. It’s a sure bet that the system will run a flavor of Linux and utilize an embedded monitoring module for thermal management. I will be responsible for integrating the operating system, drivers, and our in-house applications, which may require modification for the project.

Our French hosts were very courteous and easy to work with. All business was conducted in English and I had no problems communicating my thoughts. Even so, it was satisfying to note my high school French coming back little by little. Every day we were treated to lunch in the Thales cafeteria several blocks removed from the BarcoView Texen site. Dinner was typically at a local restaurant of our choosing. I tried a number of interesting dishes including fondue savoyarde, magret du canard, and cassoulet, one of the local specialities.

Toulouse itself was mostly untouched by the Industrial Revolution so it managed to retain a great small town charm despite its recent growth into an industrial center and the fourth-largest metropolitan area in France. I had ample opportunity to roam the city on Saturday so I took my camera along and tried to capture some picturesque views of Toulouse. You can browse the results using the gallery link below.