Monday, December 31, 2012

Winter Vacation Leg Five: Montpellier!

Leg Five: Montpellier!

Since we couldn't get a train from Lyon from Strasbourg, we found a cheap flight to Montpellier - which also happened to be on our "go to" city list. So we'll have to go back to Lyon another time, but Montpellier did not disappoint!  When we were driving in to the city from the airport, I was a bit nervous because the city looked a little rough and unintersting. Mind you, I was just coming from four ridiculous cities so my expectations may have been high. We checked into the hotel (Newhotel de Midi) which was right in the main square, called the Place de la Comedie. We got a tourist map and off we went!

Ironically, the first thing we saw was... a Christmas market! I hate to say it, but after Strasbourg + Vienna + Budapest, I was kind of done. Plus markets in 50+ degree sunshine are not quite the same. Wow, as I write this I can't help but think how ridiculous I must sound. (Woah is me, right?)

Some of the Montpellier highlights include the Arc de Triumph...
the Place Royale du Peyrou...
the Aquaduct...
and the Chateau d'Eau.
And then... my camera battery died. Anyway, we had a nice dinner and strolled around a bit once it hit nighttime.  The next day we had the entire day, so we slept in, grabbed a delicious breakfast at a cafe, and then went to the Fabre Museum.  This little wonder of a museum had a wonderful collection, and is often referred to as a mini Louvre. It was, and we spent a good deal of our day there.
After that, we were honestly ready to come back to Barcelona. It was a wonderful trip, but we were ready to relax and not think about planning everything out.  We had a 5:30pm train ticket back to Barcelona, and off we went.

Montpellier Impressions:
1. The best part of the inner city is wandering through the alleys, which was what Joe & I spent the majority of our time doing.
2. I could live there. I need to learn some French, but I could live there.
3. General France Impression: I do much better with French food if I can point to what I want.

With that, this concludes our winter vacation of 2012!!!

No comments: