Montpellier

Apologies for not posting this sooner! On Saturday I went with Ayse to Montpellier! It's a two-hour train ride away, close to the Mediterranean. This was my first time experiencing European train travel and it was great! The trains are much bigger and more comfortable than Amtrak, and yet they're cheaper! Go figure. We got to Montpellier and set out to find some coffee and a snack. The city is very different from Toulouse. There's an above ground tram system that runs throughout the city. It's really colorful and futuristic looking which is a weird contrast with all of the old buildings. I also felt like I was going to be killed by one of the trams because I had no idea where or when they would appear.

Tram

Place de la Comédie

After refueling with some coffee, we set out to find the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre. When we got there it was of course closed for lunch. I'll never understand that phenomenon in France. We decided to then head over to a garden with a château d'eau, a fancy name for a water tower, though it's not really a water tower so much as a fancy gazebo over some sort of reservoir type thing. It started raining while we were over there and we struggled to take pictures and hold our umbrellas at the same time but luckily it passed. While in the garden we also got to see the Triumphal Arch of Montpellier, dedicated to Louis XIV, of course.

Cathédrale Saint-Pierre

Château d'eau

Arch

As we continued to explore the city we came across another church, or what we thought was a church. From the outside it looked like your average gothic church, albeit a bit smaller than usual, but on the inside it had been transformed into a contemporary art gallery. It was amazing! The artist had created a giant web of black string soaring from the ceiling all the way down to the ground. In the center of the nave, four white dresses hung as if they were floating in the web. It was really beautiful. We headed to the Musée Fabre next to see a retrospective of Paul Signac. The show was incredible. I always love a retrospective of one artist because it really always you to see how their style changed over time and learn more about their life and artistic choices. After that it was lunch time! We ate at this cute little restaurant in the park next to the museum.

Outside of the church turned gallery

After lunch, and stopping inside the Cathédrale once it opened, we decided to go see the Mediterranean. While the city of Montpellier isn't located directly on the sea, it's possible to get to the beach via trams and buses, at least according to the map in the tourist office of Montpellier. However, as we unfortunately discovered, the bus drops you 30 minutes from the beach and we decided that with the unpredictable weather it wasn't worth the trek. Two hours wasted trying to get to the damn water. Oh well. Makes for an amusing travel story I guess (This is what I kept telling myself at least).

Cathédrale Saint-Pierre

The organ reminded me of Beauty and the Beast for some reason

The closest we got

When we headed back to the city we grabbed dinner on the Place de la Comédie, the main plaza in Montpellier. Before heading to the train station I stopped and grabbed a crêpe sucre to go from one of the many crepe stands in Montpellier (For some reason Toulouse doesn't have many crêpe stands on the street but Montpellier had a ton). There's something different about walking around a French city at night while eating a crêpe. I can't really explain the feeling, but it's something everyone should do at least once in their life. We headed back to the train station, got on our massive double-decker train (Ian be jealous) and headed back to Toulouse. It was a lovely day!

Opera Comédie at night

Ayse et moi

Late night crepe

And in case you were wondering, next week is vacation so I'll be in London from Friday-Tuesday and then Paris from Wednesday-Sunday. And the weekend after that I'm going to Brussels! What is my life?