A Picnic in the Bush and Visiting the City Thursday 17th July

The Opera - Place de la Comedie - Montpellier

Last night, we were supposed to go and watch a concert that was being held in the old quarry of St Jean du Moulin. It was a part of the large summer music festival organised by Radio Languedoc, and we set off around 8.30 thinking that we would have missed the first bit of it, only to discover that nothing was due to start until 10pm. By that hour we would be tucked up in bed, so we viewed the great stone walls from which our house had been hewn, and filled the intervening hour with a drive up towards Montaud.

“If you turn left here, you can see the old church” said my tour guide who had so willingly driven me all around the spectacular Pic St Loup the previous evening. Obediently I turned into a narrow lane that led out of the little medieval village, and began a long climb up into the wilds of the Garrigue. We had clearly missed the church, and the surface of the road went from broken tar to gravel and eventually to rough rock.

“When in doubt – chicken out” used to be a wise saying with my water-skiing children, and with the sun now below the horizon and the shadows lengthening, we realized that a night out in the bush probably wasn’t the best option, and we did a U turn and scuttled back the way we had come. Extraordinary that within five minutes of leaving the neat little village with its window sills filled with cheery pots of geraniums and its population greeting each other out in the sun warmed streets, we were in the wilds of France where the Cathars had been murdered by Catholics and the Romans had forced their roads and their will across the land. Tonight we are going to return, but this time, we plan to work our way up towards the old castle ruins and be there in time to photograph history with the evening sun turning the valley below to gleaming gold and green.

It occurs to me that I am cooking again. Suddenly the fridge is full of interesting food and the barbeque outside has been well and truly christened. We haven’t eaten a single meal inside, and even breakfast is eaten on the terrace while still in our nightclothes, happily out of sight of the early arrival of the postman and the neighbours who are departing for work. Huge bags of green beans and fresh new potatoes are mingled with hard boiled eggs from free range chickens. Garlic is cheap and herbs are everywhere, and any country where cheese is sold at a sensible price is good enough for me. I had forgotten how much I loved goat cheese and the mere taste of Roquefort brought back wonderful memories of past holidays in Provence.

“Montpellier, the city of a thousand fountains” or apparently so the wizard George Fresche has decreed. Consequently, despite it being a very hot day, our tour around the central part of this lovely town was rewarded with a variety of fountains to be found in all sorts of extraordinary places. We had to brave the Social Security offices, and in order to avoid standing in line for hours, we were at the bus stop near to our house soon after seven in the morning, and ventured into the new transport system which now operates from all the outlying villages into the great metropolis of Montpellier. Deposited at the tram station at Notre Dame de Sabblasou, all we had to do was to walk about twenty yards and the snazzy tram collected us from the equally snazzy station platform, and we bowled merrily into the city. Jean was amazed because on his frequent visits to the city some ten years ago, he recalled a slow crawl, log jammed traffic and barely a parking spot to be had. Now we happily paid $5 a head and hopped a bus and a tram and in less than an hour, we were drinking coffee in the Place de la Comèdie. Instead of the trams running along rails laid in concrete, the lines are craftily submerged into well cut grass and consequently one feels as though you are being born smoothly along a river of lawn, aware that there is hardly any traffic and very few snarl-ups to be seen.

Montpellier is truly a fascinating city and the central part which radiates out from Place de la Comèdie is a network of tiny medieval streets which wind and wander along. Ancient open doorways give intriguing glimpses of courtyards and hidden gardens, and on one occasion, we ventured into one and found ourselves in the Museum of Antiquities. The building alone was enough to satisfy our curiosity, but with no financial outlay whatsoever, we were free to wander around among paintings of severe elderly gentlemen, guilded staffs, pottery, old maps and engravings of the city from hundreds of years ago. Having first been settled in the 1100’s, it’s not surprising that Montpellier has a fair amount of history to show off. We worked our way fairly swiftly through the “Salon de Revolution” and pondered briefly on whether the way in which the French had set about updating their politics was quite the best thing for all concerned. There was a neat little informative sketch showing exactly how Madame la Guillotine operated, and having been assured of its efficacy, we moved on to the happier sights of a drawing room in the 1800’s.

There is something incredibly French about sitting at a café enjoying a cup of coffee which is barely five mouthfuls but which brings new life to you, and eating a croissant that only a French baker could produce. Everyone casually watches everyone else unless they are buried in a copy of Le Monde or some similar publication, and the waiters whisk away flakes of pastry from the table tops and with amazing sleight of hand, they relay the tables ready for the next customer. It occurred to us that the French don’t seem to need the assurance of being constantly connected to someone else on a cell phone whereas in America, it seemed that nobody could get out of bed in the morning and clean their teeth without having input from about three different contacts. Here, they actually talk to each other and relax in the sunshine and enjoy their surroundings without having to indulge in a loud and annoying conversation with some unseen person.

Fortified, we strolled through the Place but resisted the temptations of Polygone and worked our way down to the bottom of Antigone . Thanks to the tram system, it is so easy to hop aboard and save ones feet and have an air conditioned sit-down while being able to view parts of the city without worrying about where the traffic is going. Lunch was a tasty and reasonable repast under the trees which we ate while being serenaded by a man playing an accordion nearby. If it had been any more French, we would have had Juliette Binoche and Gerard Depardieu eating at the table next to us.