Montpellier in a day

Montpellier, a city in the south of France that felt so much more French than Paris. Gorgeous narrow lanes, accordion players and string quartets in the streets, nothing opens till 11am and doesn't close until late. Aside from our disappointing apartment which was the least favourite of those we have stayed in, we loved Montpellier.

We only had two days there and wanted to do a day-trip to Nimes on one of them, so we spent the first day roaming the city lanes.

Our apartment was just out-of-shot down this lane

Huge selection of outdoor dining

Our first job was to find breakfast... and a cafe just up the street from home made some of the best coffee we have found so far! It was good enough that we went back the next morning for more, which is the first time we've done that :-)

We had planned to look around a few of the shops that looked interesting, but nothing was open! Plan B: head to the playground for an hour and hope things opened in the meantime... They didn't.

So we walked up to the Porte de Peyrou, which is the triumphal arch of Montpellier. It sits up on a hill that overlooks the city.

The courthouse (I think)

Porte de Peyrou

Monument in Place Royale du Peyrou

Aqueduct St-Clement

By the time we finished there it was 11am and although many restaurants and cafes had their tables out and looked open, they either weren't or had opened for drinks but didn't serve food until later. It was very frustrating with two hungry kids!

So we went and bought some basic groceries and headed back to the apartment for an hour. When we ventured out again places were finally starting to open! We did a bit of browsing and shopping and had some lunch. Then we took the kids down to a gorgeous carousel that we had seen in the Place de la Comedie, a lovely open square.

Place de la Comedie

Carousel

By then the afternoon was getting on so we bought some things to make dinner and headed home for another evening in. It turned out that our apartment was in a lane full of bars and restaurants that don't open until about 8pm, so the noise started then and increased until about 1am when things started closing for the night... You can't win 'em all.

From what I've seen online, Montpellier is much bigger than we thought and we really didn't scratch the surface. We only explored our small local district. I'd like to come back with more time and have a proper look around.