Called the "pink city", Toulouse is located near the Spanish border and is the largest French center of the aviation and space industries. Its usual name comes from the old buildings, which are made of dark pink brick houses and with terracotta lined facades.
Toulouse was an important point on the St. James to Santiago de Compostella. A Romanesque pilgrimage church of St. Sernina, being one of the best examples of Cluniate-type architecture in France, which is currently on the UNESCO list. Around the church stretches the Old Town with buildings from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century. At the cobbled streets you can see houses with decorative fronts lined with terracotta arranged in different patterns. The city also has an important technical monument, which is the UNESCO-listed Southern Channel connecting Garonne with the port of Sete on the Mediterranean.
Toulouse is also an important academic and scientific center. The second-largest French university operates here. No less important is the research center dealing with space techniques, which is associated with the science center "Space City" with flight simulators, laboratories and a life-size model of the Ariane rocket. In turn, the aviation industry is represented by Airbus production plants operating here.
