Last day in Montpellier

Today we had a bit of a late start as I had got up at 3am to buy tickets to the Cyndi Lauper tour coming to Australia in April 2025. A a bit of frustration and seeming to go around in a loop over and over, I can report I was successful and Heidi and I will be going to see her next year. I then went back to bed and slept until 9am, which is quite late for me. After a petit-déjeuner of yogurt, fruit, toasted baguette and coffee we headed out to explore more of the city.

Ian had found a self-guided tour on-line, so we vaguely followed that. We passed the shop where we had bought some handmade products yesterday and Mira greeted us like friends, so I asked if I could take a picture of her shop and her, which she agreed to. We wandered around the narrow streets and laneways and came across Café Bonvoisin (aka Coffee House) that was run by the very friendly and talkative owner Sid. He was very pleased to be preparing coffee for two Aussies from Melbourne as he said that the French don’t yet appreciate great coffee. We both ordered a Cortado (piccolo in Melbourne). He was very keen to hear what we thought of his coffees and, luckily, we could tell him that they were excellent and of the standard we expect in Australia.

After our coffee we continued up Rue St Anne, past lovely artisan shops and the Église Sainte Anne towards the starting point of our self-guided tour. We stopped at a post office so I could buy some more stamps and it was the quickest and most straightforward transaction I have ever had in a French post office.

We walked up Rue Foch, past the Hotel de Ville and beautiful apartment buildings, the court of appeals building - one of the cleanest buildings I have ever seen - towards the Arc de Triomphe, also referred to as the Porte Du Peyrou. We continued towards Place Royale du Peyrou, where there is a huge statue of the Sun King (Louis XIV) and the Château d’Eau. Just beyond the Château d’Eau is the Aqueduc Saint-Clément, which was 14 kilometres long and took 12 years to build.

We then headed down towards the Montpellier Cathedral, called St. Pierre. On the way we passed the Jardin des plantes de Montpellier (Botanical Gardens), which is associated with the University. St. Pierre Cathedral is a huge building; you don’t realise the full magnitude of the building until you start walking from one end to the other.

After all this sightseeing, we had built up an appetite, so we started looking for somewhere to have lunch. We came across a lovely Square called Plan de l’Université where we had lunch at The Black Cat. After lunch we continued to walk through the area, finding some great spots like the beautiful Place de la Canourgue, Place du Marche aux Fleurs (that used to be a flower market), and amazing Pâtisseries every few hundred metres. We also spotted lots of cats today, although most were camera shy.

We started making our way back to our apartment via rue St. Anne as I had a noticed a jewellery shop that had interesting and colourful earrings called Bijoux, Creations by Henri Mouraire, I chatted to Henri for a while and got a peak at his workshop. He designs and makes everything himself which is so nice to see. His material of choice is Perspex.

Before heading home we stopped at Sid’s place again for coffee. I had a mocha and Ian his first ever Moccachino. Sid was very happy to see us again and gave us a couple of recommendations for Lyon which is nice. I also stopped in on another store called Merveilles where everything is hand made by the owner or friends of hers who are also artisans. It has been a lovely day just meandering around this beautiful city at our own pace.

Tonight we plan to try another local place for dinner.Read more