Medieval Toulouse is hyper modern escape for families with tech-loving teenagers

IT WAS never going to be easy convincing a 15-year-old that a “cultural” holiday would be fun.

A typical teenager, my son Luke would happily ditch history in favour of YouTube and WhatsApp.

So, at first glance, the beautiful and historic French city of Toulouse seemed an unlikely choice. But this is a place full of surprises.

Known as “the pink city” because of its coloured stone, Toulouse dates back to medieval times.

But more importantly for techloving teens, it is also the No1 city in Europe for the aviation and space industries.

We started with a visit to AviaSim, a realistic flight simulator where you can pilot an Airbus A320.

Luke was a natural, making the kind of smooth landing which gets the passengers clapping.

On my turn, I ploughed through houses and trees. Disaster.

According to the instructor, Luke’s skill was down to gaming — maybe those hours on the Xbox weren’t wasted after all.

Next up was Aeroscopia, the museum of the air. It has a huge collection of planes and you can even hop on board Concorde, where you discover that for such a technological marvel, the cabin feels cramped and old-fashioned. Despite being too young to remember the excitement of hearing Concorde’s muffled cracking sound as it broke the sound barrier, Luke can still sense the magic of this elegant bird, grounded since 2003.

Meanwhile, the Airbus factory next door offers assembly line tours where you can see planes being built.

The winding streets of Toulouse itself are lined with quirky boutique shops, and the pretty buildings and outdoor cafes invite you to take your time exploring.

It’s the third largest university city in France, adding to the hip and fashionable feel. As this is France, you’re spoilt for choice for food. We enjoyed delicious tapas at the cool, 1950s-themed Le Ver Luisant in Rue de la Colombette and traditional French cuisine at Le Bruit Qui Court in Old Toulouse.

I was expecting to be nagged for a Big Mac but surprisingly, Luke tucked in.

The people here take leisure seriously. In summer, they create an artificial beach on the banks of the River Garonne called Toulouse Plages, with traditional boules, five-a-side football, volleyball and more.

After spending some time here, we took a boat trip on the river, chugging peacefully across the city before heading through Saint-Pierre lock and climbing to the Canal de Brienne.

Finally, no visit to Toulouse would be complete without a trip to the Cite de l’Espace.

When the Philae space probe landed on a comet in 2014, the US Congress penned a letter congratulating Nasa.

Nasa wrote back explaining it was the European Space Agency, not them, behind the project. And Toulouse is at the heart of the Agency, with 120,000 people working in the space industries. Cite de l’Espace is like a cross between a theme park and a science museum. If you fancy firing up your kids’ interest in science, this is the place to do it.

A rocket towers above the entrance, paving the way to interactive exhibitions explaining how and why we go to space, along with astronomy, black holes and the Big Bang.

Visitors can take a moonwalk wearing special backpacks to simulate the lack of gravity, and see 3.3billion-year-old moon rock.

The Mir space station gives an insight into living and working in space and you can see Saturn or Mars, more than four million miles away, through powerful telescopes.

There’s even a glimpse into the future potential of space, such as cities built on the moon, thanks to the Imax theatre show.

In July and August, the park opens until 11pm on Thursdays and closes with a firework spectacular with rockets of a different kind shooting across the sky.

On our way back to the airport, we remembered another reason to visit. Rugby is a local passion. As we passed the Stade Toulousain, our driver asked: “Did you visit our temple? Rugby is our religion.”

There’s a lot more to this city than history.

GO: TOULOUSE

GETTING THERE: Easyjet flies to Toulouse from all London airports and from Bristol with prices from £33 each way. See .

STAYING THERE: Rooms at the conveniently central 4H Hotel Mercure Saint-Georges start from £79 per night. To book in advance, see .

MORE INFO: Visit or .