La deuxième semaine – Montpellier

And so to Montpellier, third largest city on the southern French coast, and eighth largest in France. One of the oldest universities in the world, the University of Montpellier (1160) is here. The city has a large student population, and a young vibe about it.

We’re here for two weeks to spend the mornings learning French at l’Institut Linguistique Adenet (ILA). But first things first.

We arrived in Montpellier late on Sunday evening and following directions from passers by  our GPS took only 3 hours to find our apartment that we’d booked on AirBnb.

The apartment was quite pokey, but we could live with that. AirBnB apartments are usually those in which the owner lives, so there was food in the fridge, which is fine. What was not so fine was extraordinary amount of clutter that made it impossible to find a place to unpack – or work, for that matter. But the pièce de résistance had to be the owner’s underwear (you read that correctly) still in the washing machine. It’s difficult to imagine anything more off-putting.

Oops. You’ve already read that. Yep, two AirBnB apartments in a row had the owner’s knickers in the welcome pack.

Bottom line though was the completely non-functioning WiFi. And so we decamped. Again. This time we ended up in a hotel at La Grande Motte, a golf resort area by the sea, a few miles from Montpellier. Nice and quiet, and comfortable. And with real WiFi. Also some decent restaurants, so not a bad place to stay. Except of course booking.com forgot to mention that the hotel was a building site, sans toit as they say. Good oh.

Still and all, pas mal, Craig managed a run by the water each day, and opined that it was a kind of French Blackpool. The type of place where one might wear a knotted handkerchief on one’s head, and recline in a deckchair on gravelly sand while licking an icecream cone dripping down one’s stomach. From there each morning we drove half way to the city, then parked and took a tram.

Montpellier Trams

There was a very well priced ParkTram arrangement, where for €4.30 we got all day parking and two return tram tickets! Fast, easy, convenient. That took us to Place de la Comédie, the heart of Montpellier, from which the school was only a three minute walk.

On the first day however, having had so much fun with the GPS we thought we’d drive to school. Not our smartest decision. Epic fail, in fact. We drove for well over an hour, with our little GPS man telling us to go left into dead-end lanes, or turn right after we’d done so, and at one stage we ended up driving around the pedestrian-only Place de la Comédie, in circles mixing it with the trams. A gendarme drove past and looked us over, but his face seemed to be saying “crazy foreigners, you can’t help them”. Finally, in desperation, we parked at the railway station and walked to the school. Only later did we realize that we could have walked from apartment to school in about fifteen minutes!

Students from our school at coffee time.

And so to school.  Our teacher, Géraldine, is very good -and she seems to be having as much fun as we are. Each morning we work our way through quotidian dialogue, vocabulary, and the odd newspaper article. And lots of coffee.

So far, when speaking French, Ruth has not once, but twice been mistaken for a Canadian. C’est ne pas bon, pas de tout. And strangely, when buying gazole for the car along the autoroute, Craig spoke in French and was assumed to be Spanish, as that’s the language in which the clerk replied. Go figure.

Cité de Carcassonne

We did say ‘quirky’

At the end of our first week of school, we drove to Carcassonne, an amazing walled city dating back to the fifth century. There had been Roman fortification earlier than that, but the fifth century was when the Visigoths did their thing and created the walled city we see today. We found a quirky little B&B run by two Belgians who moved to France some years ago. It had but two guest rooms, odd colour schemes, and its own enticing view of the cité and neighbouring vineyards. As well as some unusual ‘facilities’.

Our hosts suggested dinner at a nearby two Michelin star restaurant,  Le Parc Franck Putelat. This was an opportunity we couldn’t even think about missing, and in the event it was well worth it! Fortunately we were able to get a table, and everything about it was superb. We only got lost once walking there on a fairly dark night, along gravel lanes then a tarred road. On the way we had spectacular views of the walled cité.   As for the restaurant, the service, food, wine and ambiance were all beyond reproach. Seldom does one call a restaurant ‘perfect’ but this was about as close as it gets.

Then a nice walk back home along the lanes and paths through the vineyards, now illuminated by moonlight. Très romantique!

Toulouse

The next day (Saturday) we headed for Toulouse. This is a lovely city, with a wonderful vibrant, young feel about it. The usual problems parking the car under the hotel, given that the circular driveway was about a foot narrower than the car. We’re getting used to that.

Eliane Elias

The highlight of the Toulouse visit was an Eliane Elias concert in the little village of Bruguieres, about 20km away. A fabulous Brazilian jazz pianist/singer, whom Ruth had seen twice before. A fairly cosy new venue, and an intimate performance that was a real blast.

Strolling around the streets of Toulouse, it was a delight to hear the strains of traditional French folk songs such as Hava Nagila played on an accordion …

At the Musée Fabre

Then it was back to Montpellier for our second week of school (by this time running out of clean hankies). Today (23rd October) instead of sitting in the classroom we went to the Musée Fabre, founded in 1825 and featuring works from the 15th century onwards. We went primarily for Le goût de Diderot, and an exhibition of pointillism by Paul Signac.

Montpellier is lovely, with a maze of tiny little streets and alleys full of chic boutiques and shoe shops (lots of shoe shops), little squares with bars and cafes. Some of then have very interesting menus.

 More scenes from Montepellier (click to view full size):

There are many such buildings – you’re seeing an optical illusion, the rounded corner of the building is flat, and is painted on the flat side of the building.

Place de la Comédie

A quiet Tapas night.

Your weary blogmeister will now retire for the evening …