I have visited 11 (Paris, Amiens, Mont Saint-Michel, Vézelay, Asquins, Clermont-Ferrand, Poitiers, Bourges, Toulouse-2, Gavarnie) out of the 78 components, but here I will talk about just one of them, Hôtel-Dieu Saint-Jacques in Toulouse, as it has not been much talked about previously.

If you are in Toulouse, you would want to visit both the two components, right? I was in Toulouse in summer 2022 and visited Basilique Saint-Sernin but failed to visit this hospital. So when I found myself again in Toulouse in winter 2022, I made sure to visit it.

I tried to find the best way to see this place and did some research. The building, still used today as the administrations for the Toulouse Hospitals and Toulouse University Hospital, has a website where they mention its WH status, even with a virtual tour of the three historical rooms.

Hôtel-Dieu Saint-Jacques

But it does not say how we can actually see them in reality. 

So the first thing I did in Toulouse was to visit the tourist info office behind Le Capitole / City Hall and to enquire how. They said that it was a working hospital and not normally a place for tourists to visit, but only once a year, on the World Heritage Day in September, they opened it up for the public.

OK, well, I'd still go there to see the hospital from outside anyway and to take photos.

I walked around the courtyard (top photo) with a large shell as a symbol of hospitality (according to their website) in the middle and noticed the historical entrance with a statue of St. Jack just above it and entered. The foyer itself looked pretty historical.

The virtual tour on the website was like a free guide app on my phone for my visit and looked inviting with flashing arrows, and I knew that the door to the three historical rooms was right at the foyer. There was also a floor plan of the building at the foyer. But this door to the historical rooms was closed and had the sign "No Entrance" on it. For a few minutes I was milling around the foyer, looking like a patient, and then started seeing some workers going in and out of the door.

A few more minutes later, one of the workers left the door wide open, making the "No Entrance" sign no longer visible. OMG, shall I enter? I could see from the door that there was nobody in the first historical room. From the floor plan I knew there was a toilet attached to it, so why don't I just go use the toilet?

This room, Salle des Pèlerins / Pilgrims (bottom left photo), was quite large with wooden ceiling and had some paintings on the walls like a museum.

After using the toilet I proceeded to the second room, Salle des Colonnes / Columns (bottom center photo) , as it also has a toilet attached to it. This room is long and has two rows of columns running from one end to the other, also with paintings on the walls.

The third room, a chapel (bottom right photo), is entered through a door from the first room. This door was closed, but to my surprise it was not locked. Emboldened, I entered the chapel and closed the door shut behind me. So this was a chapel for the pilgrim patients to pray, but for a chapel it was cavernous and not very atmospheric. It looked like it had been left alone for a long time. 

In all the three rooms I spent probably less than 10 minutes. Of course it would be nicer if a guide explained what the rooms were like when used by the pilgrims, but that would happen only on the WH Day in September. But it was nice to see all this, as it was the only one out of the 11 components that was not a church. 

Just before I left the premises I found a UNESCO plaque on the exterior corner of the building.