Toulouse and Montpellier... a report.
 

We arrive at the Blagnac airport after a ridiculously gruelling overnight flight form Casablanca. The little man is there with our name on a sign ( that is always a comforting feeling ;) ), but our luggage has apparantly arived at a completely different carousel !! Soon sorted but hard when you are tired.

As is usual with an early morning arrival our room is not ready.We wander around the streets surrounding the Place du Capitole, Lisa is immediately feeling less tired, the place is full of fashion and shoe shops !! She is in heaven and immediately has developed a french accent.

We have a nice lunch at Cafe Florida on the square. I like duck !!!

We both need a shower so we head back to the Hotel Balcon, which is only 20 meters from the square. Our room is ready, a very cool hotel is the Grand Balcon, complimentary WiFi and Mini Bar and all in a 200 year old building. Its good to be clean and be able to spread out for a couple of hours.

Yes we are tired....its official...absolutely rooted !!

There is no point in crashing yet, so we head down to the bar at the hotel and I teach her how to play chess !! Two games and a couple of drinks later we head out to stretch the legs, its about 8pm and still plenty of light, we do a little expanding circle around the square until we decide its time to have a snack (lunch was big !!) and finally hit the sack.


Dinner was a big salad for Lisa and a Charcuterie assiette for me. a couple of glasses of vin ordinaire. We watch a soft pitter patter of rain fall on the square.


The bed is big ,soft and comfortable as all hell. Its been a long night and day....but there is no dust and civilisation surrounds us.

PS rooted is an Australian colloquialism for tired !

Toulouse is a really nice city, the weather is a bit crappy, overcast and distinctly cool, but still a nice place.

After a bit of a sleep in we wander downstairs for breakfast. Lots of pastries, good coffee, scrambled eggs and a vitamin bar !!! I select omega 3 and the Happiness combo !! LOL


A wandering we go !!! Toulouse has a great museum, containing a tremendous collection of masters as well as some very good sculpture.Toulouse is also known as ‘Ville Rose’, which means the Pink City. It gets the name from the distinctive brick architecture that can be seen everywhere in the city. Toulouse plays host to a diverse and rich culture with its ancient looking buildings and monuments and capital square which is the hub of most activities. The city towards the Garonne River is actually on site of an early Roman settlement.


It was just a very pleasant day of wandering around, we saw the "Pont Neuf", the new bridge which had its original planning started in 1542 .
Lisa had a little run of retail therapy but the big concern is packing space !! For our last night in Toulouse we find a restaurant that serves Cassoulet....damn fine it is to !! The waiter, who has just spent 7 months in New Zealand) tells Lisa that her pronounciation of merci beau coup, comes out as "thank you nice arse".
all in all a nice day.

Must have been something on last night in Town as the streets were alive until very early this morning.

We check out of the Hotel Grand Balcon and make our way to the train station for the run to Montpellier. Our seats are booked, 15 and 16 in carriage 3 !! Yeah right...the train arrives and there is no carriage 3, so we try carriage 13....no seats 15 and 16 !!! (bloody travel agents !!). Any way we find a seat for lisa and I get to watch the world go by in the standing section ( actually more like the leaning section), its not a long trip, so I watch episodes of "Family Guy" on my I-Pod.

We arrive dead on time and catch a Taxi to the Pullman Antigone Hotel, this hotel could be anywhere in the world !!! Anonymous. It backs onto a rather large shopping centre so we a walk through, Lisa tells me she could spend a fortune.Montpellier is the 8th biggest city of the country, and is also the fastest growing city in France over the past 25 years.

We continue through to the Place De Comedie.Walking through Montpellier's historical center is like travelling through 1,000 years in time, from 985 to the seeds of the city's future.
The city of Montpellier has kept the reminders of its past intact and proudly protects the symbols of every era.

Meandering along the typical medieval streets of the south, we wind our way from the central Place de la Comédie to the peaceful Place de la Canourgue.We visit the Fabre museum itself an astounding work of art, an innovative combination of classic and contemporary architecture. Today, the museum offers over 800 works, 900 engravings and 3,500 drawings in its exhibit area.


Once again, another city that is chocker block full of good shopping !! The restraint Lisa is showing is remarkable ! LOL


We decide to drink and eat our way back to the hotel....good fun!!

Today we have a slow start...we walk down to the Place De Comedie and have a "petite dejeuner", coffee,juice,bread and a pastry.... 9 euros for 2.


I have booked lunch today at a very recommended restaurant, Le Jardin Des Sens. We arrive at 12 noon and three hours later we stumble out. What wonderful food with magnificent service, a total experience!! So so so worth the money. 7 courses and the cheese selection was sublime !

The historic centre of Montpellier is very compact, we head down the street that bisects the old town and arrive at La Place Royale du Peyrou,Place Royale du Peyrou is a wide, tree-lined esplanade. At the eastern end lies the Arc de Triomphe (1692) and at the western end lies the Château d'Eau. Leading from this hexagonal water tower is the 18th-century Aqueduc de St-Clément. The weather is still a bit dodgy but we get a couple of bursts of sunshine.

We walk around the outside of the city walls until we find an interesting Rue, lots of pastry shops and some other interesting retail opportunities. I want to head towards the the Rail station as I need to find where Avis is for tomorrows pick up of the hire car. I am glad I looked today...talk about hidden away !! We have lunch at a place in the old city, Restaurant Cedarne, housed in the cellar of an old building.

We head back via Place du Comedie for a glass of wine, then onto Antigone. Antigone is a district of Montpellier . It was built in 1977 as a project for low cost housing. Its built out of pre fab material but has been designed to look neo classical, the building surround a series of open spaces, fountains and restaurants, if all public housing looked like this inner cities would be much nicer places. At the end, near the river we found the "Ayers Rock Bar", it appears to be a student dive but we wnet in and had a Crownie any way.

Dinner tonight is at La Dilgence, it took a bit of finding but the food was worth it.

We take our time packing , checkout time is 12 noon and we can't get into our Gite until 2pm anyway. A Gite is a fully furnished self contained holiday apartment.

I leave Lisa to finish while I get the car and attempt to drive back to the hotel and pick her up. The car is ready for me although the GPS wasn't, that was sorted out quickly and the Avis man gives me precise instructions to get back to the Pullman Antigone. The instructions are basically wrong, the saving grace was I was very carefull to walk to the station along the route I thought I needed to follow. I pull up in the Jet Black Merc and Lisa looks relieved.

Driving on the wrong side of the road is initially an adrenalin inducing experience but with the destination plugged into the GPS and Lisa keeping an eye on it and me keeping an eye on the road we are soon making good time. We elected to put in a route that avoided toll roads as we had plenty of time, we saw some lovely little villages.

'our luggage has apparently arrived at a completely different carousel !! Soon sorted but hard when you are tired.'

In fact this used to be the case all the time at Toulouse. If you are on a connecting flight (as we usually are, coming from Canada) virtually all the other passengers are European. The luggage comes in together, but theirs is on an open carousel, the rest, which originated outside Europe is taken to a special carousel so that you can go through customs. So you come into the airport with everyone else, wander through arrivals, and get to the enclosed custom hall.

However, we were there last week to pick up a Canadian visitor, who came on Air Transat directly from Montreal, and she landed in the new wing of Toulouse airport, with its own carousel. So no idea now whether everyone will do that in future, or just those coming directly from non-Schengen countries.

Anyway, if you are in the Toulouse airport and can't find your luggage, don't panic. It may be waiting for you on the other side of the wall.

Hi Marko,

I think it was brilliant of you to teach chess after all that travel! My DH (dear husband) and I made Montpellier our base and loved it.

Can't wait to read more of your TR!

Great trip report. Want to hear more. We are traveling to this area next year. Where is your gite?

keep going

I'm still stuck back on the first sentence of the report where Marko says <b>a ridiculously gruelling overnight flight form Casablanca<b>. Casablanca is only a few hours from Toulouse. Did you fly via Moscow?

No we flew through bloody Frankfurt !!! 2am flight out of Casablanca, flight to Frankfurt, 1 hour wait then flight to Toulouse....does that qualify as gruelling ??

(and yes I have strangled the travel agent that did it !! ;) )

Hopefully you are now unstuck kerouac.

We arrive in Olonzac and I call Derek the guy who owns the place, he gives instructions on where to meet him. He leads us through the narrow streets to our home for the next week. Lisa immediately goes into a blinding whirl of clothes washing...we were both down to our last pair of jocks.Derek is an Aussie who has made this part of france his home for nearly 10 years and he is an all around nice guy !!

http://www.languedocgites.com/
This is our place... http://www.languedocgites.com/4736/index.html
It has everything we could possibly need, a few restaurants in towns, butchers, bakers and on the outskirts a small supermarket. We unpack and then head out to buy a few necessities.Olonzac, with a population of 1600, is the meeting place of the Minervois valley.it is only 35 minutes by car to the sandy beaches of the Mediterranean and a five minute bike ride to the lake and the Canal de Midi. The base of the Black mountains with its national park are 5 kilometres away and more than a dozen smaller villages are within 10 kilometres. Only 25 kilometres away is Carcassonne, the best preserved walled town in Europe. We are surrounded by medieval churches and abbeys, fortresses, ancient roman ruins, neolithic and early man sites.

It has a small supermarket but it has about 100 different labels of red wine !!!! They have an excellent Rugby field as well, it was good to see that the Rugby goal posts out numbered the soccer goal posts in this part of France. ;)

Dinner tonight is at the best restaurant in town, La Bel, a delightfull meal, good wine. Food of an amazing standard in a small town.

The alarm goes off at 7.30am and we both decide that it is a silly idea !!

I pull on my pants and Teeshirt and I head off as the hunter gatherer looking for fresh bread, it took about 50 meters of hard slog ! LOL I arrive back home with a still warm baguette and make lisa a very healthy omelette and a mug of green tea for breakfast. I also bought a small tarte tatin and knock it back with a coffee.


A bit of driving today to have a look around. First stop is the markets at Capestang. Capestang is on the Canal Du Midi. Even though its reasonably early I couldn't resist the temptation to sample some wines, purchasing a couple for tonight !


Its then onto Beziers, the old part of the town holds a commanding position overlooking the plains. The place has been inhabited since neolithic times. We find a car park pretty easily and then proceed to get slightly lost in the twisting narrow streets. A couple of churches and a couple of coffees later we are heading back out of town, one last stop for a classic tourist pic over the Pont Neuf.


Heading south now and we soon arrive in Narbonne, unfortunately the markets (Les Halles),the place is well known for are just closing down.
One of he most charming features of Narbonne is its canal. The city is bisected by the Canal de La Robine, a branch of the Canal du Midi. We stroll along ithe attractive plane-tree lined-promenades which line both sides of the canal.
The seven hundred year old gothic style Cathedral St Juste dominates Narbonne’s skyline. Because of conflict related to medieval city planning regulations the cathedral was never completed to the original plan, but what exists is impressive. The cathedral’s foreshortened nave is compensated for by soaring ceilings.

hope the flight was very cheap!!

Dinner last night was a collection of meats and cheeses and other tasty treats, washed down with another nice bottle of red.

Another road trip today this time to Carcassonne. Carcassonne is separated into the fortified Cité de Carcassonne and the more expansive lower city, the ville basse. The lower part looks pretty boring but the castle....WOW!! Carcassonne became strategically identified when Romans fortified the hilltop around 100 BC and eventually made it the colonia of Julia Carsaco, later Carcasum. The main part of the lower courses of the northern ramparts dates from Gallo-Roman times, the early 400's. The place was falling to bits until in the 1850's it was decided to restore it.The Canal Du Midi passes through the lower town. Its cold today so we find a warm restaurant and I take the opportunity to have another Cassoulet. yum. The owners rather large dog enjoyed making his way through the tables as we ate.

After lunch in Carcassonne we wend our way through the tourists and back into the Merc for the drive to Lastours, if you are interested here is some history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teaux_de_Lastours

We did the climb and its a pretty awe inspiring place, to imagine the conditions that would require them to build in such precarious positions is pretty wild. There is a nice small museum at the base which is worth a few minutes. As we leave we drive to the ridge on the other side of the valley to take that perfect tourist photo. ;)

We leave Lastours and set the GPS on random. LOL Actually we want to go to Caunes-Minervois but we miss a couple of turn offs and find some back country roads, the amount of land here under cultivation with vines is astounding.

Caunes-Minervois is a medieval village of steep, twisting, narrow streets and sand-colored stone buildings surrounding the great 8th Century Abbey that lies at its heart. It nestles among the vineyards at the foot of the Montagne Noire, the southernmost area of the Massif Centrale. It is known particularly for its ancient Abbey, dating from the eighth century, and the outstanding red marble that has been quarried locally from Roman times.
Still full from lunch we head home and snack for dinner.

rhkkmk, even if it was free ( which it wasn't) it would have been too much ! :)

Sounds like a good trip.

I'm happy that you enjoyed Montpellier. It is my local town and seems to be under rated by tourists.

A few points :

The Antigone new city was previously land occupied by the military. That section of town was an exciting experiment in pedestrian city development 30+ years ago.

Mosson, to the North, was built in the 1960's to provide cheap houses for exiles arriving from the former North African colonies.

I've got photos of the area here : http://the-languedoc-page.com/photos/index.htm

Peter

Montpellier has a really funky feel about it, probably due to the number of students. One of the disappointing things was the fact that the Three Graces fountain was surrounded by scaffolding, part of the renovations. Also the student influence meant that a lot of people were very willing to practice their english.