Summer stalls in the Esplanade Charles de GaulleI thought I’d better write this quickly just in case you don’t hear from me again. Half an hour ago, we found a really large mushroom that had popped up overnight and it looked exactly like the ones that we have in the fridge. We dutifully went onto the internet and checked out the site for identifying the good mushrooms and it seemed to pass all the tests, so we chucked it into a frying pan with some salted butter and ate it, and it was delicious. That was 20 minutes ago so if this turns out to be a very short chat today, you will know that we were last seen legging it to the Montpellier hospital!
Last night was fun and it is something that we will definitely repeat, only not until next year because it closes on the 2nd September. Running down the lower end of the Esplanade Charles de Gaulle in Montpellier are a series of little wooden houses that look like a cross between a Victorian bathing hut and a wooden rondavel.
“Nobody is going to have that many ice cream stands” I ventured when we were there on Thursday, but during our quick visit to the Tourist Information Centre right next door, we discovered that throughout the height of summer, the little houses open up and are in fact craft shops. The idea is so great because when they shut shop at 11pm, they quite literally shut shop and the shutters that lift upwards and form a roof for the customers and are then brought down and locked so that all the displays inside can be left intact.
Before embarking on a tour of the thirty or so little stands, we first did a circle of the park that is right next door, and quickly realised that this was a very different Montpellier from the one which we had been seeing during daytime and the whole pace and rhythm had slowed (if it were possible). Groups of friends sat on the grass around the lake, sharing a bottle of wine, enjoying their music and laughing together. Parents with little ones in push chairs paused to point out the ducks to their offspring, and elderly folks sat on the park benches and enjoyed the scene. I began to realise that we were definitely in the upper age bracket of the people wandering about, and as the evening progressed, it was easy to see that the youth of Montpellier are definitely in the ascendancy when it comes to the population that is out and about on a Saturday night.
We began our tour of the stands and it was good to see that a great deal of what was on offer was hand made, or at least locally produced, and there was none of the awful cheap Chinese tat anywhere. Clearly used to tourists, many of the stall holders spoke English, and were knowledgeable about their products and proud of what they were selling.
One of my favourite stalls was run by a delightful young lady who had two sides to her business. On the one hand she sold good quality tee shirts with excellent designs on them, and the rest of her stand was taken up by a series of incredibly frustrating wooden puzzles. There was an Australian guy with his girlfriend who had apparently arrived when the stall opened and he wasn’t planning to leave until he could solve the problem. Eventually the stall owner was just about begging him to have a look at the solution and his girlfriend was dragging at his arm, but this was one Australian who wasn’t going to be beaten. As we reached the last stall, I looked back and there he was, still battling for the solution and nearly short of a girlfriend who was by now sitting on a nearby wall sulking. Nobody can say that the Aussies are short of tenacity.
All the time we strolled and looked, I could hear the gentle strains of some really nice music drifting down from the trees, and realised that speakers had been strung the length of the park, and far from being the usual wall-paper music, they were playing some excellent ballads. Nothing was intrusive and yet it formed a lovely background sound to the hum of the general public.
From the Esplanade, it was merely a matter of twenty paces and we were into the Place de la Comédie . Again, this was a very different Place from the one where we had sat and sipped our early morning cup of coffee two days back. Everywhere there were people strolling, people sitting at the cafés ordering their early suppers and people taking photos of other people who draped themselves around the base of the famous fountain of the Three Graces behind which stands the Opera.
That most French of sounds, the accordion was being played by an elderly man who had set up camp in the centre of the Place, and as the last rays of the sun slid away from the top of the Hotel du Midi, the lights of the ancient manège or merry go round, began to shine more brightly.
Montpellier was coming to life under its night time guise, and the young people poured into the Place and wandered into the side streets. There was no shouting or a feeling that they owned the streets but rather a more vibrant atmosphere began to fill the place. Pretty girls in low backed dresses and high heels managed to navigate the cobbled stones of the old alleyways, and the young men, clad almost to a man in tee shirt and jeans, laughed and joked with each other, and delivered the traditional three kisses to any young lady that they recognised.
We sank gratefully into chairs in one of the smaller squares and ordered a quarter pichet of white wine and allowed our somewhat stiff hips to have a rest. Why is it that if you are walking briskly for three miles on the flat, you can keep going, but a short wander of stop-start, uphill and back down again walking can quickly reduce you to exhaustion. The accordion player had caught up with us and he provided the most perfect backdrop of sound to the surrounding brasseries which serve light refreshments and the open air restaurants which go for the more serious cuisine.
Just a quarter of a pichet of wine earns you the right to sit for as long as you like and watch the other people watchers. A group of small children were dancing in a circle in the middle of the square, the little girls trying to convince two very small boys that it would be fun to join in. The boys were having none of it and ducked and dodged rather than be caught as “piggy in the middle”, and it wasn’t hard to imagine the same children playing the same games to the same music a hundred years back.
We finished our drinks and made a concerted effort to explore further into the narrow lanes, but whereas I felt perfectly safe where there were lights and people, I found it slightly disconcerting to venture into the darker alleyways where we had walked so happily during the daytime, and so we returned to the bright lights and eventually made our way back down to the Place de la Comedie.
Walking back through the Esplanade towards Corum, we became aware that there was another group of young people now on the move. Darkly dressed in semi-military fashion, they moved in groups with any number of big rangy dogs at heel. There was nothing confrontational about them, but I had the feeling that it was time for us to leave the city to its youth, be it the sparkling young girls and lads or the heavy booted dog owners. My hips had finally won the battle and we sank onto the seats of the tram and let the driver take us safely back to Sabblasou.
The pichet of wine must have been even better than I thought because having driven the little Golf since we arrived with no problem at all, when we got to the car park, I discovered that while we had been in Montpellier, someone had stolen the reverse gear; it just wasn’t where I had left it. All we need at this stage is a car with a broken gearbox, and so when we got back home, Jean went out and had a look and came back and reported that reverse was in exactly the place where it should be. He then pointed firmly towards the bedroom and wished me a very good night, which is just what I had.
Last night was fun and it is something that we will definitely repeat, only not until next year because it closes on the 2nd September. Running down the lower end of the Esplanade Charles de Gaulle in Montpellier are a series of little wooden houses that look like a cross between a Victorian bathing hut and a wooden rondavel.
“Nobody is going to have that many ice cream stands” I ventured when we were there on Thursday, but during our quick visit to the Tourist Information Centre right next door, we discovered that throughout the height of summer, the little houses open up and are in fact craft shops. The idea is so great because when they shut shop at 11pm, they quite literally shut shop and the shutters that lift upwards and form a roof for the customers and are then brought down and locked so that all the displays inside can be left intact.
Before embarking on a tour of the thirty or so little stands, we first did a circle of the park that is right next door, and quickly realised that this was a very different Montpellier from the one which we had been seeing during daytime and the whole pace and rhythm had slowed (if it were possible). Groups of friends sat on the grass around the lake, sharing a bottle of wine, enjoying their music and laughing together. Parents with little ones in push chairs paused to point out the ducks to their offspring, and elderly folks sat on the park benches and enjoyed the scene. I began to realise that we were definitely in the upper age bracket of the people wandering about, and as the evening progressed, it was easy to see that the youth of Montpellier are definitely in the ascendancy when it comes to the population that is out and about on a Saturday night.
We began our tour of the stands and it was good to see that a great deal of what was on offer was hand made, or at least locally produced, and there was none of the awful cheap Chinese tat anywhere. Clearly used to tourists, many of the stall holders spoke English, and were knowledgeable about their products and proud of what they were selling.
One of my favourite stalls was run by a delightful young lady who had two sides to her business. On the one hand she sold good quality tee shirts with excellent designs on them, and the rest of her stand was taken up by a series of incredibly frustrating wooden puzzles. There was an Australian guy with his girlfriend who had apparently arrived when the stall opened and he wasn’t planning to leave until he could solve the problem. Eventually the stall owner was just about begging him to have a look at the solution and his girlfriend was dragging at his arm, but this was one Australian who wasn’t going to be beaten. As we reached the last stall, I looked back and there he was, still battling for the solution and nearly short of a girlfriend who was by now sitting on a nearby wall sulking. Nobody can say that the Aussies are short of tenacity.
All the time we strolled and looked, I could hear the gentle strains of some really nice music drifting down from the trees, and realised that speakers had been strung the length of the park, and far from being the usual wall-paper music, they were playing some excellent ballads. Nothing was intrusive and yet it formed a lovely background sound to the hum of the general public.
From the Esplanade, it was merely a matter of twenty paces and we were into the Place de la Comédie . Again, this was a very different Place from the one where we had sat and sipped our early morning cup of coffee two days back. Everywhere there were people strolling, people sitting at the cafés ordering their early suppers and people taking photos of other people who draped themselves around the base of the famous fountain of the Three Graces behind which stands the Opera.
That most French of sounds, the accordion was being played by an elderly man who had set up camp in the centre of the Place, and as the last rays of the sun slid away from the top of the Hotel du Midi, the lights of the ancient manège or merry go round, began to shine more brightly.
Montpellier was coming to life under its night time guise, and the young people poured into the Place and wandered into the side streets. There was no shouting or a feeling that they owned the streets but rather a more vibrant atmosphere began to fill the place. Pretty girls in low backed dresses and high heels managed to navigate the cobbled stones of the old alleyways, and the young men, clad almost to a man in tee shirt and jeans, laughed and joked with each other, and delivered the traditional three kisses to any young lady that they recognised.
We sank gratefully into chairs in one of the smaller squares and ordered a quarter pichet of white wine and allowed our somewhat stiff hips to have a rest. Why is it that if you are walking briskly for three miles on the flat, you can keep going, but a short wander of stop-start, uphill and back down again walking can quickly reduce you to exhaustion. The accordion player had caught up with us and he provided the most perfect backdrop of sound to the surrounding brasseries which serve light refreshments and the open air restaurants which go for the more serious cuisine.
Just a quarter of a pichet of wine earns you the right to sit for as long as you like and watch the other people watchers. A group of small children were dancing in a circle in the middle of the square, the little girls trying to convince two very small boys that it would be fun to join in. The boys were having none of it and ducked and dodged rather than be caught as “piggy in the middle”, and it wasn’t hard to imagine the same children playing the same games to the same music a hundred years back.
We finished our drinks and made a concerted effort to explore further into the narrow lanes, but whereas I felt perfectly safe where there were lights and people, I found it slightly disconcerting to venture into the darker alleyways where we had walked so happily during the daytime, and so we returned to the bright lights and eventually made our way back down to the Place de la Comedie.
Walking back through the Esplanade towards Corum, we became aware that there was another group of young people now on the move. Darkly dressed in semi-military fashion, they moved in groups with any number of big rangy dogs at heel. There was nothing confrontational about them, but I had the feeling that it was time for us to leave the city to its youth, be it the sparkling young girls and lads or the heavy booted dog owners. My hips had finally won the battle and we sank onto the seats of the tram and let the driver take us safely back to Sabblasou.
The pichet of wine must have been even better than I thought because having driven the little Golf since we arrived with no problem at all, when we got to the car park, I discovered that while we had been in Montpellier, someone had stolen the reverse gear; it just wasn’t where I had left it. All we need at this stage is a car with a broken gearbox, and so when we got back home, Jean went out and had a look and came back and reported that reverse was in exactly the place where it should be. He then pointed firmly towards the bedroom and wished me a very good night, which is just what I had.
It has just occurred to me that having written this much, we are clearly not going to fall into the hands of the stomach pump operators, and with it looking as though it might rain today, I shall have the frying pan ready. Montpellier (as I might have mentioned) boasts an average of 300 days sunshine a year, but today isn’t one of them. I just hope it perks up for the picnic tomorrow.
1 comment:
Dear Kate,
This is excellent, I'm reading your diary regulaly because I enjoy reading it. And the photos are great!
So pleased the mushroom didn't attack you.
Lots of love to you all,
Elaine
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