Montpellier, it's the 8th largest city in France and the
fastest growing over the past 25 years (thanks Wikipedia). After the lovely
picturesque and much smaller cities of Dijon and Avignon, it was also a
reminder of how crowded and dirty life is in larger cities. When I arrived, I
was dropped off by Phillip with 3 other students at a shopping centre on the
outskirts, thankfully this time it was situated at a busy tramway station and I
quickly made my way into town (trams are great because unlike buses the driver
is secluded and so it’s much easier to fare skip :D).
Probably due to the old infrastructure and fast growing
population, the city is shrouded in scaffolding and the sounds of construction
works were always present, my first impressions as I took the tram towards the
town was that the city is huge. The main CBD is dominated by apartment blocks
but also large open plazas and monument sites, perhaps I was just used to the clean
and less impoverished streets of Avignon but I was amazed at the black market
sellers and amount of beggars on the streets while I walked to the apartment I
had found on Airbnb. When I arrived at the apartment, I was met by Semiha who
showed me the room and also explained what the best attractions would be for me
to look at the following day. The apartment was very contemporary with lots of
stainless steel fittings, hanging bookcases (impressive) and big paintings, my
room whilst pretty large only used the stainless steel aspect from the rest of
the apartment and so felt a lot like a prison cell. With the Wi-Fi not working,
I wasn’t there long before heading out to have a look at the city by night and
to swing past McDonalds and use their free Wi-Fi to contact family and friends
and plan a walk the next day and also ahead to my stay in Carcassonne. Then it
was off back to my prison cell to sleep as, like Avignon, I had two nights in
Montpellier but the final day I would need to be at the station early to get to
Carcassonne and so the next day would be my only chance to see Montpellier.
8 AM and I was up and out the door (Airbnb hosts usually
give you keys so you can come and go as you please without waking them), first
stop was the Tourism office and to see the Christmas markets and the huge
theatre that is actually partially beneath a large open space called the Corum,
this is effectively the centre of the city and one of the sides of a large
pedestrian only part of the city. The old buildings bordering the long
rectangular Place de la Comedie, which was just next to the Corum, were
impressive however the graffiti over them and the empty McDonald’s bags
floating in the large ‘Fountain of 3 Graces’ ruined the grandiose feel that may
have once struck travellers before me back in the city’s heyday.
After this I walked
through the old city, past Montpellier’s oldest three churches which were large
but weren’t to the same level of workmanship in their design as what I have
seen in the remainder of France so far. There were however a few nice twisty,
narrow alleyways and hidden squares which were very nice and had less of a
modern, touristy feel about them. Just like Paris, going back a few streets
from the main touristy boulevards really helps with finding less expensive,
more authentic food.
I exited the narrow alleyways near the huge Palais de
Justice/Cour des assisses (Courtroom), which is located just inside the city
walls and near an ancient old roman archway that has a striking resemblance to the
arc de triumph. This quite pretty archway was one of the nicer monuments in
Montpellier, probably spared the graffiti and beggars due to its proximity to
the Courthouse, and is one of the main gateways out of the old city walls and
lead to a large open area where an ancient viaduct brought water into the city
via a sheltered set of wells inside a building, named quite originally, the
Palace of Water.
After walking the length of the old town, I made my way back
to the first tram line I could find and hitched a lift back to the City Centre
to try see the major museum, the Fabre Museum. Upon arriving, the museum
appeared open however I quickly found out that the all the major museums in
Montpellier are closed on a Monday… Very disappointing.
It was getting reasonably late though so I headed back to
the accommodation, where the Wi-Fi was
now working and planned the rest of my trip until arriving in Caen where I
would spend 4 days with my friend Mathilde and her family.
Exactly a week after leaving Perth, and after seeing both
the highs and lows of 1400 km of France, I was ready to take the train to
Carcassonne, a UNESCO Heritage Listed Medieval City for the nights of the 17th
and 18th for the next stage of my trip.
Rating: 3/10, with museums closed and widespread
construction works.
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