A Summer in France: Montpellier—Our First Bucket List Continues

This is chapter 10 of Summer in France: Montpellier. We arrived from Barcelona a couple of days ago, but our first stop was Les Grands Buffets that I recently posted about. So, we’ve now had some time to recover and can resume our sightseeing. Montpellier is the seventh largest city in France with a city population of about 300,000. Students comprise one fourth of its population. It’s also a very old city mentioned in documents since the year 985. Established in 1220, the University of Montpellier is one of the oldest universities in the world and oldest medical school still in operation.

Place de la Comédie

The heart of the medieval town centers around the Place de la Comédie. It’s one of the largest squares in Europe. While we were here, they were setting up for a festival starting in a couple weeks. Every time we walked through this square, the cafes were filled with people. Being outdoors is an important part of life in Europe. Young and old, people are always walking around.

The heart of old town

Most of the old town is pedestrian. Our apartment is about a block away, so we walked everywhere. There were lots of monuments, churches, shops and quirky alleyways to discover. Like Barcelona, we noticed a lot of graffiti. We’re not on the bandwagon that this is a creative expression of art. However, here it appears to be embraced as there are sections of the city where it’s encouraged and there are competitions held to cover areas with “art”. My thought is with such beautiful and ancient historical artifacts, graffiti seems to detract rather than enhance. Just saying.

Now that you’ve seen some of the historical sites and churches, here are photos of the old town I took while we wandered around.

Flea markets

I think virtually every city in France has a weekend flea market. It’s one of my favorite hobbies when we travel both at home and abroad. I could spend hours rummaging through antiques and vintage treasures looking for souvenirs. When I shop in Europe, I’m limited by space and weight in carry on luggage. Now that cutlery is considered a weapon at the airport, my silver purchases are limited. Anyway, I’ve learned to pack a foldable “lay flat” bag in my carryon. This way I can load it up with my newly found goodies and check the roller board on the way home if I have to. Who cares if they lose my clothes? My new treasures stay with me.

I’ve written a couple posts about antiquing in Europe. If interested, you may want to check out my Top 10 secrets for Paris Flea Market Shopping and The 3 best flea markets for antiquing in Paris.

A day trip to Sète

It was a beautiful sunny day with a high of 78 today, so we decided on a day trip to the Mediterranean Sea. As you can see in the map below, Montpellier is very close to the sea. We chose the seaside resort of Sète, which is about 20 miles away.

Sète is a town built on and around Mont St Clair. On one side is a salt water lake where they farm oysters and mussels and on the other side is the Mediterranean with about 7 miles of sandy beaches. It’s known as the Venice of Languedoc because of its network of canals.

Dining and danger

After walking around town, it was time for lunch and wine to quench our thirst on such a hot day. We chose a quaint cafe right on the canal. Our table also happened to border the street, literally inches away.

All was fine as we looked over the menu. Then we saw a huge city bus barreling it’s way right toward us! Holy moly, it scared the crap out of Danny. You’ll see exactly how close the bus gets to our table as it makes the curve. That’s Danny’s arm and our bottle of water in the third photo. The bus swerved so close to us we could have easily been crushed had we leaned over. We felt the rush of wind as they passed by us every time. After the first time or two this happened, it got less scary as the buses roared by every 10 minutes. Crazy! In spite of the scare, the food was delicious, including the dessert.