Hôtel Dieu de Toulouse, Medieval hospital near Garonne River in Toulouse, France.

The Hôtel-Dieu Saint-Jacques occupies a long stone range on the left bank of the Garonne at 2 rue Charles-Viguerie. Its pale masonry facade has three levels of windows, two wide arched openings at ground level on the left, and a taller gabled section with a large glazed window and a projecting round tower on a rough stone base. A small turret with a pyramidal roof sits right of centre on the roofline.

The hospital was founded in the Middle Ages to serve pilgrims traveling to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Its location on this major pilgrimage route made it an important stop for centuries.

The hospital's name comes from Saint James, whose scallop shell marks the building: a sculpture over a metre wide stands in the entrance facing the Pont-Neuf. The Confrérie de Saint Jacques ran the Hôpital Novel from 1257 to receive pilgrims, and the shell remains the emblem of that religious past.

The building at 2 rue Charles-Viguerie now houses the CHU de Toulouse administrative centre, a telemedicine institute, a skin research centre and a medical history museum, plus a dental service. The last patients left in 1987, so it is not a working hospital; check opening conditions for the museum before visiting.

A scallop shell over a metre in diameter is carved at the entrance facing the Pont-Neuf, the emblem of the pilgrims who passed through. The last remaining pier of the old Daurade bridge still stands against the building, and the grand staircase with its Italian-style glass roof dates from 1716.