Hôtel Mercure Toulouse Centre Wilson Capitole

Good sized room with a very comfortable bed. Our room looked out onto the outdoor eating area. Nice to be able to open the window. Friendly and helpful staff. Good sized bathroom with fluffy towels. Well located hotel with lots of shopping and nearby restaurants. Short walk to Victor Hugo Market which is a must see for any visit to Toulouse. We ate lunch at one of the restaurants upstairs in the market which was fantastic.

Our check in day was Saturday and we were arriving by car. We had made enquiries about parking at the hotel when we booked. The hotel did NOT contact us to advise there were yellow jacket demonstrations happening that day and the hotel would not be accessible by car after 1pm. As check in is available from 2pm, this would have been a good idea! We could have arrived earlier, parked at the hotel and checked into our room later. A little bit of forward thinking by the hotel management to inform us of this situation beforehand would have been very helpful. Apparently, demonstrations by yellow jackets on a Saturday is a regular occurrence. Police blocked all the roads to central Toulouse. At the time we did not know why. It became very frustrating after driving around for some considerable time in an unfamiliar town trying to gain access to our hotel and our GPS sending us around in circles. We eventually phoned the hotel to be told it was a yellow jacket demonstration. We spoke to a couple of policemen who did not know when the roads would be reopened. Imagine our dismay, when we eventually parked our hire car in a parking garage outside the blocked off area, wheeled our luggage almost one kilometre to the hotel, to find a notice in the lift about the yellow jacket demonstrations that day! This notice was advising guests checking out that taxis and other vehicles would not be able to access the hotel after 1pm. Why not contact people checking in that day to let them know the same thing??? Even though the staff were very apologetic, it didn't help much. The following day, we walked to the car parking garage to collect our car and take it to the hotel. That was not a problem, but accessing the car park was very challenging. Fortunately, we had been told about this and were prepared. It is very narrow and very low via a steep ramp. The stated 1.75m height limit is very real. Definitely not for the faint hearted!!