6 places to spend an afternoon.
Les Abattoirs is one of the best modern art museums in the south of France and half the people in Toulouse forget it's here. Saturdays start at the covered market, then it's bookshops on the west bank and concept stores that actually stock things worth buying.
3 things to do, 3 shops, all in Saint-Cyprien.
The cultural weight of Saint-Cyprien sits on three addresses: Les Abattoirs on Allées Charles de Fitte for postwar art with a Picasso stage curtain in the basement, the Prairie des Filtres for six hectares of Garonne-side grass, and the Baltard-style cast iron of Marché Couvert for everything else.
Six hectares of riverside lawn named after the old water filtration station that once supplied the city's fountains, spread right along the Garonne below the Pont Neuf. Toulousains claim it with blankets and bottles at sunset, and every June it hosts Rio Loco, a world music festival that's been running since 1995.
A neoclassical 1831 slaughterhouse on Allées Charles de Fitte converted into Toulouse's modern and contemporary art museum in 2000, now holding over 2,000 works. The basement was excavated to 11 metres deep specifically to house Picasso's enormous 1936 stage curtain - 8.3 by 13.25 metres - shown only six months a year due to its fragility.
Toulouse's last covered market still standing on its original 1892 iron frame, sixteen cast-iron columns holding up two Baltard-style halles on Place Roguet. Some thirty stalls do Atlantic and Mediterranean fish, regional charcuterie, olives and cheese, Tuesday to Sunday mornings. Mondays the food clears out and secondhand booksellers take the awnings.
Saint-Cyprien's shopping spine runs from avenue Etienne Billières, where L'autre Rive has been doing the LIR-labelled bookseller thing since 2008, to Place Intérieure Saint-Cyprien, where La Fabrica rents FSC-certified skateboards alongside ethical French labels. Cacaofages, two brothers and a plate-glass chocolate workshop on Place de l'Estrapade, covers the edible end.
Two brothers, one sculpting cacao behind a plate-glass wall on Place de l'Estrapade since 2017, the other running the counter. Order the praliné noisette-amande hot chocolate, guimauve skewered on top, and wander the free sculpture gallery while it cools. The violet chocolate is Toulouse-specific and better than it sounds.
Independent bookshop on avenue Etienne Billières, LIR-labelled since its 2008 founding, stocking everything from literature and BD to foreign-language titles and art books. Regular author events and a sister branch inside the Halles de la Cartoucherie.
Skate and outdoor concept store on Place Intérieure Saint-Cyprien carrying ethical French clothing brands and renting handcrafted FSC-certified oak longboards for guided skate tours of the city. For every item sold, a euro goes to Champ d'Action, a local association dedicated to cleaning the Garonne.
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The hotels worth booking in and near Saint-Cyprien.
Restaurants, bars, and cafes in Saint-Cyprien.