Toulon Travel Guide

  Herbs of Cote d'Azur
by MikeAtSea
 
  • Herbs of Cote d'Azur
      Herbs of Cote d'Azur
    by MikeAtSea
  •   Toulon
    by Kriesta
  •   Toulon
    by fabrice
  • The theatre
      The theatre
    by buffalo1975
  •   Toulon
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Explore Toulon

Things to Do  

Place de la Liberté

Place de la Liberté, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  This 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 a place of liberty but as the site of a brutal prison colony, the Bagne.The second act of Bizet’s opera Carmen ends... 

Carmen by Georges Bizet

Carmen by Georges Bizet, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  According to operabase.com, Bizet’s Carmen is the third most often produced opera worldwide, after Verdi’s La traviata and Puccini’s La Bohème. (Operabase tabulated the number of productions, not the number of performances, over a five-year period.)The opera houses in... 

The ceiling of the opera house

The ceiling of the opera house, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  If you don’t mind getting a stiff neck, have a good look at the ceiling of the Toulon opera house. The painting up there is fifteen meters in diameter and portrays 123 “personages”, which I presume includes angels, demons, busts and statues in addition to people. The artist,... 

The opera house

The opera house, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  Unlike the Marseille Opera, which faces north and thus is nearly always in the shade, the Toulon Opera aka Théâtre Municipal faces south and looks glorious when the sun is shining on its nicely renovated façade.The Toulon Opera was built in nineteen months and was... 

Grand Hôtel

Grand Hôtel, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  The dominant building on north side of the Place de la Liberté, behind the Fountain of the Federation, is the Grand Hôtel, built in 1868-1869.In the long run, the Grand Hôtel was too grand to be just a hotel. During the Second World War it was requisitioned by the occupying... 

Théâtre Liberté

Théâtre Liberté, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  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 a cooperative regional entity called Toulon Provence Méditerranée (TPM) which is now responsible for... 

Tell them that the Truth is beautiful

Tell them that the Truth is beautiful, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  In the autumn of 2012 the Théâtre Liberté presented an exhibition and a series of plays and lectures on the topic of “1962/2012: the War of Algeria, fifty years later”. One of the plays on this topic was by a visiting theater troupe called La Compagnie des Camerluches. (The... 

Harbor tour

Harbor tour, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  Several companies offer boat tours of the harbor and the military port. The one I chose (for no particular reason) was called Bateliers de la Côte d’Azur. The tour was excellent, and I can highly recommend it to anyone who understands French. (I didn’t notice any harbor... 

Ro-Ro

Ro-Ro, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  On the civilian side of the harbor I learned from our guide’s commentary what a Ro-Ro ship is. Ro-Ro means “roll on, roll off”, sort of like a car ferry, but bigger. Trucks or anything with wheels can be driven on (so the freight does not have to be loaded by a crane) and... 

The military port

The military port, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  For about half of our harbor tour we went past the military port, which is the Mediterranean headquarters of the French Navy. The actual military port is off limits to civilian ships, so we stayed just outside the boundary markers. Our guide knew everything about the ships... 

Vauban was here

Vauban was here, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  The great military engineer Sébastien Le Prestre, marquis de Vauban (1633-1707), visited Toulon four times between 1679 and 1700 to fortify the city and develop an arsenal to support the ambitious naval policy of King Louis XIV.On our harbor tour we had a look at some of the... 

Tour Royale

Tour Royale, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  This Royal Tower was built from 1514 to 1524. It was the first fort to be built to protect the harbor at Toulon.Vauban did not arrive on the scene until 155 years later. When he inspected the Tour Royale he praised it highly (in contrast to his scathing criticism of the... 

Musée National de la Marine

Musée National de la Marine, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  This large aerial photograph in the Naval Museum gives an overview of Toulon harbor today.The museum documents the military port of Toulon from the earliest times to the present, including the role of the French Navy in the Second World War. There is an exhibit showing how... 

The Arsenal of Vauban

The Arsenal of Vauban, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  In addition to the fortifications, Vauban also designed the arsenal at Toulon, including a rope-making factory that was housed in a very long building (shown as a model in the museum), to produce the vast quantities of ropes that were needed for the large sailing ships of... 

Hotels  

Restaurants  

Flamingo: By the harbor

Flamingo: By the harbor, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  The quays by the harbor consist mainly of wall-to-wall restaurants. They all look more or less interchangeable. I chose this one, for no particular reason. Second photo: View of the harbor from the restaurant.Third photo: Moules frites aka mussels and fries. I thought the... 

Transportation  

The multimodal interchange hub, aka train station

The multimodal interchange hub, aka train station, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  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 after his visit. Actually stagecoaches had become quite comfortable by 1839, because they were... 

Bicycle rentals at tOObike

Bicycle rentals at tOObike, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  I rented a bicycle from tOObike for three days at € 11.00 per day, which at the time was their rate for three days or more. (This has since gone down a Euro to € 10.00 per day.) For only one or two days they charge € 12.00 per day, and they also have weekly or monthly rates.... 

Shopping  

Internet: Hole-in-the-wall phone shops

Internet: Hole-in-the-wall phone shops, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  If by any chance you are traveling without your own WLAN or WiFi device (as I used to do until recently, since I am usually the next-to-last person to acquire technical equipment that everyone else has had for years), your best bet for making an internet connection in Toulon... 

Off The Beaten Path  

Le Pradet

Le Pradet, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  At lunchtime I turned off the Coastline Bicycle Trail (Piste Cyclable du Littoral) and took a short detour down into the town of Le Pradet, where I discovered (first three photos) that I was not the only cyclist at the town square.Le Pradet is one of the eleven towns that... 

Arsenal Bicycle Trail

Arsenal Bicycle Trail, Toulon

 Nemorino Says:  This is a short but car-free bicycle trail that goes along the northern edge of the Arsenal. It starts near the Palace of Justice, in the center of Toulon, and leads west for a few kilometers until it gets to the far end of the Arsenal, where it abruptly stops at an... 

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Map of Toulon