Montpellier was never on our wish list of places to visit on this trip. We were simply looking for a reasonably large town or city with good rail connections between Nice (our last stop) and Barcelona (our next stop). Some place to break the journey into 2 x 4 hour trips instead of a boring long 8 hour trip.
Montpellier fit the bill - so here we are. And what a fortunate accident it appears to have been.
It's a lovely town. Lots of bars and cafes, nice architecture, large open plazas, good rail and tram system and just enough sights to keep us occupied for the 3 full days and 4 nights that we are here.
Our accommodation is a simple but well equipped and clean apartment on the 2nd floor (so not too many stairs to hump luggage up and down) and only about 300 metres from the railway station. The supermarket is about 30 metres away. Perfect!
We have a kitchen with a 4 burner hob, convection oven and microwave (not that we'll use the microwave) so we can cook our own meals. When I say we of course I mean Lizzie. She's head chef and I am dish washer.....it's a system that works.
I'm not going to go into any great detail about Montpellier except to say that the city is definitely worth a visit.
It has the most colourful trams I have ever seen.
The historic part of the city is an interesting rabbit warren of narrow lanes and open squares with cafes, bars and meeting places.....all immaculately clean. The cleaning crew are out sweeping up what little rubbish is on the streets every day.
They have the worlds oldest practicing medical school still in operation. Talking of which - just a word about the medical school here.
William VIII of Montpellier gave freedom for all to teach medicine in Montpellier in 1180 regardless of creed or colour. Quite forward thinking for the 12th century. The city's faculties of law and medicine were established in 1220 by Cardinal Conrad of Urach, legate of Pope Honorius III; the medical faculty has, over the centuries, been one of the major centres for the teaching of medicine in Europe.
Back then, people from all religious backgrounds lived side by side in harmony - Christians, Muslims and Jews. The population these days is still very diverse and as far as I can tell, still mostly harmonious.
Attached to the medical facility is a huge church.....In the 14th century, Pope Urban VIII gave Montpellier a new monastery dedicated to Saint Peter, noteworthy for the very unusual porch of its chapel, supported by two high, somewhat rocket-like towers. With its importance steadily increasing, the city finally gained a bishop, who moved from Maguelone in 1536, and the huge monastery chapel became a cathedral.
The city was once surrounded by a wall to protect its people from attack. Now only 2 towers survive, built around 1200. One of them is on land just behind the Cathedral.
A huge stone aqueduct was built to bring in water from nearby San Clemente in the eighteenth century, with a length of 880 meters and with two orders of arches. It runs through the district of Les Arceaux and served to bring water from the source of San Clemente to the city, which were 14km apart. The aqueduct flowed into a large reservoir located near the Arc de Triomphe, where the water was redistributed providing water to the city fountains and public washing areas.
The main square - if you can call it a square (it's not square in shape) is the Place de la Comedie. A long wide pedestrian area which runs alongside the tramway is quite and impressive thing to see with gardens and walkways, open spaces and fountains and the opera house at one end....and there's a merry-go-round just the same as the one we'd just seen in Nice.
It's here in this open space that you'll find the tourist information office.
Behind the information office is a large pavilion which is home to the Photography gallery. Awesome! I was so excited when I read about the photo gallery - after the disappointment in Nice at last I was going to see a gallery here in Montpellier dedicated totally to the art of photography.
You know what's coming don't you......?
CLOSED!
It was between exhibitions.....one had finished recently and the next one wasn't starting until the following week. Absolutely gutted once more ...... we went shopping.
And after shopping decided that we'd eat out for once.
While here in Montpellier we have mostly prepared our own food and our beer and wine has come from the supermarket rather than bars and cafes in order to stick to our budget. BUT one day we decided to have lunch out and went to a place called Sir Georges. We'd passed there the day before and been approached by one of the staff trying to coax us to sit at one of their pavement tables and eat - and we'd been quite impressed by her spiel about locally sourced materials, home baked breads etc. So we thought we'd give it a go.
I hadn't had a burger for ages so thought that I'd try their Classic Burger and Fries and Lizzie had the Chicken Caesar Salad.
I was asked how I liked my burger cooked so I said medium thank you. I have no idea why the asked me this. I could imagine the waiter going into the kitchen and saying to the cook - he wants his burger cooked medium thanks - and the cook saying - he'll have it raw and bloody or not at all!
Our drinks arrived and after a while our food. I must admit that it looked very good. A decent sized burger in a nice bread bun. But when I bit into it....the outsides of the burger was brown, but half a millimetre under the surface it was still very raw and barely warm.
There was no way I was sending it back....I could picture the cook spitting in it or something in protest at having to actually cook something.
It taste ok. But overall I'd have to give them only about 4 out of 10 for the burger and even less for the chips which had been precooked, kept warm and were limp and mangled. The beer was excellent thank god or it would have been a disaster. Lizzie rated the salad only average too but did say that the chicken was very tender. I shall be rating this establishment on Trip Advisor.
To make up for this disappointment we had a walk and found a nice bar in another square which served cocktails and had one each. It was nice to sit in the sunshine sipping cocktails and people watching for a while. Cuba Libre for me and a PinaColada for Lizzie.
We'd actually called into this bar the day before - which had been cold and overcast - for a coffee and hot chocolate. But had sat inside as it was so chilly. Had to laugh. Lizzie was sitting against the wall of the cafe on a long padded bench seat and I was opposite in a chair. I could see a pile of magazines and newspapers stacked on the window sill next to Lizzie so asked if she could see if there was anything interesting to read. She reached up and snagged a magazine and put it on the table in front of her and started turning the pages. She soon put it back. It was a mag for gay men - with full colour pictures!
From here we had another wander through town and saw the spire of a large church. We thought we'd go and have a look. We found the entrance to the church but it was no longer used as a place of worship and was now an art gallery. Modern stuff....a bit weird. There were very primitive type paintings on the walls......coffins all lined up down the middle of the church and attached to the the pillars were a lot of colourful plastic buckets. I didn't get it at all.....quite liked it in a strange way.....but no way I could understand what the artist was getting at.
It's a bit like life really - I like it but don't even pretend to understand it.
And so our brief stay in Montpellier comes to an end........I'm very excited to be heading to Barcelona next.....Picasso, Miro and Gaudi
A few more photos will be posted on my facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/malcfrost