We took our time to drive across to Montpellier, where we spent our final week in France. We decided to stop in Uzes for lunch, which is one of our favourite towns, about an hour and a half’s drive from Buis. I was delighted and surprised to see a young man walking down the rue in his Collingwood indigenous round singlet! (Ed no photo taken to avoid reader trauma)
Then we drove on to a little village called Russan, where we spent a delightful week in 2009. Our principal memory is arriving into town on a Saturday in the middle of a bull taunting festival (or so it seemed to us). We can still picture the bull in the town square being teased and all the young louts running to safety – which was a beaten-up Peugeot – also in the square. It was horrifying and mesmerising at the same time. We found the cottage we stayed in.
We continued our day of transitory sight seeing with a stop in a very picturesque town called Sommieres.
We really enjoyed our stay in Montpellier and think that it is a chic, classical city. Its buildings and urban design are 17th and 18th century rather than medieval. There was also a 19th century Haussmann inspired makeover. We loved the wide boulevards.
We spent a couple of half days just wandering around. We always manage to find nice shady spots in a square for coffee, lunch, or an aperitif. We particularly liked the Jardins des Plantes. It is maintained by the Montpellier University. The University is very old and integral to Montpellier and is most well known for its medical faculty.
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| Many impressive trompe l'oeil in Montpellier |
Despite all that Montpellier has to offer, we spent more time exploring the surrounds. First up was to climb the Pic St Loup, a rocky mountain about 30 minutes’ drive north. It is not a long hike – about 5km return – but it is steep and rocky in parts. The reward is the amazing - and vertiginous – views of the narrow valley below and further afield.
After our hike we found a great grill/BBQ restaurant on the outskirts of the nearby town of St Martin de Londres. The food was home made and plentiful. We sat outside on a little terrace and a lot of local people seemed to be eating there. It looked like some of the local tradies were having their end of year lunches. In addition, it was Wednesday, when French kids do not go to school, so there were quite a few parents with their children around.
Our next outing was to nearby Sete, by train, the Venice of France. They say Venice but it was more like Murano i.e. much smaller but still very pretty.
We climbed Mt St Clair to get a view of the canals and surrounding countryside. Sete also has long, sandy beaches. We decided to have a swim to cool down after climbing Mt St Clair, but the water was freezing so we didn’t stay in for long.
On Friday we drove an hour north to a town called Ganges to catch up with a mutual friend, who we had briefly met in Buis last year. His name is Will and he is a friend of Scott and Betsie, our former neighbours in Buis. Will is American and moved to France to live after retiring as a teacher. He is very gifted with languages, speaks French fluently and has just completed a masters degree in Occitan at Montpellier University. It was market day in Ganges so we hung around there for a bit before he drove us up to Mont Aigoual in the Cévennes; a very beautiful drive. We think that this is the first time that we’ve been to the Cévennes. I’m sure we will return as it looked like there were plenty of hiking opportunities.
