Cité de l’espace, Toulouse

Reaching for the stars... Toulouse, the French capital of aeronautics. At the end of the 19th century, the city welcomed pioneers such as Clément Ader, inventor of the first aircraft, and Latécoère, the first mass-produced aircraft. In Vol de nuit, in which Saint-Exupéry recounts the exploits of the Aéropostale pilots as they set off to deliver mail to South America, the industry becomes a romantic epic. Today, Europe’s Airbus and Ariane Espace programs point the way to the future. Toulouse’s space museum retraces all this ambition.