Montpellier and Carcassonne

Amy and I decided to spend a week in France to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, and as usual Amy did a superb job organizing and planning for it. Here's a blog post about the trip.

Sunday: we flew KLM from Boston to Amsterdam, then on to Montpelier after a long (5+ hours) layover. Amy decided that it might be interesting to try stopping in on one of the airport "pod hotels" during the layover, so she booked us from 10-2 in the Yotel Schiphol. That was a good move -- it was great to get a couple of hours of actual sleep as opposed to trying fitfully to "sleep" in a chair. Pod hotel rooms are a little weird, basically just a bed (and if you pay more $$, a bathroom), but who cares! You're only there to sleep an hour or two.

Second leg of the flight was uneventful, we arrived around 4:15 and made it into the city a bit before 5.  After a lengthy wait for the owner of the rental apartment, we did eventually connect and schlepped up our bags.

First impressions of Montpelier: in terms of layout, the looks of the buildings, the vegetation, the stonework, it reminded us a lot of Malaga-- light, sandy-colored stone buildings, sycamores, jasmine bushes, oleander. It seems a little more laid back and has more of a student / middle-eastern vibe than other big french cities that I've visited.

The apartment is nice -- it is on the corner of the third floor of a 3-story building, plenty of space, smallish kitchen but a nice big airy living area with space to spread out, and an ample terrace/patio with plants, tables, etc. 

After getting collected we set out to have dinner; Monday nights are tricky here apparently (lots of places closed), but we were able to find a falafel place "Tempo" that did the trick. The lady running the show was friendly and helpful and the food was good. Very tasty home-brew green chile hot sauce with quite a kick, right down my alley.

We walked back down closer to our apartment to catch the #3 Line tram, had to scramble around for a while to find a tabac shop that actually sold tickets. The tram was nice albeit quite crowded with people going to the stadium.

Tram on the way there:

Near the stadium entrance:

Inside:

 I would say that the Stade de la Mosson was a medium-sized soccer arena, with around thirty thousand seats; total attendance for the game was just under eleven thousand.  Fabulous weather for soccer -- soft breezes, a bit cool but not cold. We did get rained on a bit during the game, but not a real downpour, just sprinkles.

The competitors: Cameroon and Canada.  Both teams very feisty, scrapping for loose balls in the midfield and trying to attack as much as they could.  The Canadian passing game was very good; they had the bulk of possession (at least two thirds I think) and they did a very good job circulating the ball around the back and attacking down the sides, but couldn't quite convert once they bumped up against the core of the Cameroon defense.  Cameroon was mainly trying for the counter-attack; they sent a lot of long balls up the field when they did regain possession.

The stadium had supporters from both sides, but I think more Cameroonian fans than Canadian overall (there were two Cameroonian supporters sitting behind us exchanging a lot of commentary). Canada won the game 1-0, the goal coming on a header from a corner kick.  Probably the right result, I think they were much the stronger team overall.

It was fun, and we lasted pretty much the entire game without fading, which is pretty amazing given that we were jet-lagged and operating on minimal sleep. We walked back to the tram, squeezed our way on, and made it back around 11:15 to collapse in bed.

Tuesday: Amy signed us up for a wine tour today, but before we started on that it was off to the marché to buy provisions for the next couple of dinners. We hiked up to the Marché des Arceaux, which was pretty good. The market is tucked into a space next to a big roman aqueduct that runs through the city east-west; it was about a 15 or 20 min walk from our apartment. We bought fresh ravioli, some chicken, artichokes, spinach, strawberries, cherries, apricots, bread, a small corgette pizza-like thing, leeks, shallots, tomatoes, and green beans. Fun to shop at these places, always interesting to see what the local specialities are. When we were in the Dordogne region a while back it was walnuts and duck-related dishes (terrine, pate, etc) at the marché; here in Montpellier it seems to be wine, cheese (chevre) and various seafood concoctions (including squid pie, which I confess I was not brave enough to try).  One lady was selling green almonds at her stall, which I had never seen before. She cracked one open for us and gave us a taste -- it was white and crisp/sweet had the consistency of a broccoli stem maybe? Anyway, it was interesting to try.

Nearing the marché:

Loot from the market:

The wine tour was run by a very jovial local French man named Bertrand, who piled a bunch of folks into his van (four Australians, two Germans, and the two of us) and drove us up north of the city to the Pic Saint Loup area, where we visited a couple wineries. Pic Saint Loup is part of Languedoc / Occitaine wine region, which is immense, and produces all sorts of different wines these days. According to Bertrand this area had been known in the 50's/60's/70's for churning out large quantities of fairly average wine.  In the 80's there was a "crise du vin" of sorts when it became clear that most French consumers had moved on to slightly better wines, so they replanted and switched things up to start producing smaller batches of better wines.

In Pic Saint Loup they grow mainly "GSM" wines -- grenache + syrah + mourvedre. They are known for red wine and rose'.  Bertrand's descriptions of the world of French wine-making were informative and entertaining in a dry way; for the wine-makers in France he said it is all about "The Book", e.g. the specific set of rules that apply to their particular region and terroir.  The various rules and regulations in "The Book" can apply to basic things like the region itself (you have to be within a specific area), the grape varieties, how the grapes are grown and harvested, the types of soils, but can also extend to wine-making techniques (maceration or no maceration, length of fermentation, types of barrels used, etc) down to the most minute details, including how and when the wine can be sold once it is bottled.   Wine-makers have a big incentive to follow the rules in "The Book", since if they do, then they can use the terroir name on their wine (Pic Saint Loup, or Medoc, or St Emillion, or Chateau-Neuf-Du-Pape, or whatever). If they don't follow the rules: no problem, just don't put the name on the wine -- you can call it table wine from Languedoc, but you can't mention the terroir name (even if it was made right smack in the middle of the region).

For the older and more established wine terroirs, the rules in "The Book" are very extensive and restrictive; in Languedoc there is a bit more freedom -- the way that Bertrand described it was that most of the rules apply 'outside' (soil, grapes, planting, liters per hectare produced, etc), and there are relatively few rules 'inside' (fermentation techniques, blending, barrels, etc).

 First winery, Château La Roque:

 

Inside where the real work gets done:

This is a batch of sparkling wine that they are just experimenting with -- we saw it being bottled, which was kind of cool. The bottling equipment is in a self-contained semi trailer that pulls up and does its thing for a while, then moves on to another winery.

Inside the chateau, this is an old section of dating way way back. Walls are thirteenth century, the stone section on the bottom is supposed to be part of an old Roman road.

Tasting:

Poppies!

 

Everything we tasted was good -- we had a couple bottles of white and rose, then the rest was red wine of various sorts -- some oaky and some not, various different blends of G-S-M for all of them. Yum! It was fun. 

On to the next winery, Mas Gourdou:

This was a slightly smaller operation I think, but still with excellent wine (we had red, white, and rose).

Bertrand also arranged for us to have lunch, prepared by his mom at an old farmhouse a bit to the west of the wine region.  We found out that the Australian group included a mom there to see her daughter play for the national team, so that was interesting to chat about (their family is from Melbourne). It was a nice laid-back way to spend the day overall.

Visiting a small town on the way back:

In the evening we made dinner at the apartment and had some "down time" to read and watch a bit of TV.  As in the US the world cup games are only broadcast on the pay TV channels, so we weren't able to see the US team play Thailand, but I did watch the first half of the Spain vs South Africa match on replay.

The one bummer of the trip so far is that I seem to have a badly sprained or broken toe on my left foot -- still not quite sure whether I busted it during my soccer match on Sunday morning or whether it was from stubbing on a couch leg while walking around the apartment here, but it definitely looks unwell (I've broken toes before, and this one definitely looks like that). Hopefully I can baby it until I am back in the states to get it x-rayed and looked over.

Wednesday:

Our original plan was to make this a museum day, but after staying up late we went to bed without setting an alarm, then woke up quite late (after 10am, forsooth), so we had to change things up a bit. Instead of the museum thing we walked over to the Botanical Gardens and explored there a bit, and then headed over to lunch after that.  The gardens in Montpellier are nice but very informal -- not the sort of place where everything is tended and tidied within an inch of its life. 

Lunch was lovely; we ate at Le Petit Jardin, which has a really nice garden area out back, shady with nice breezes and scents of jasmine in the air.  Amy had a pea soup starter; I had a sea bream (doraude?) carpaccio, then we both had fish for the mains.  For dessert I had a rhubarb and strawberry tart, which was interestingly prepared-- they had figured out some way to cook the rhubarb so that it was still crisp and crunchy, so it was very flavorful and elegant.

After that we walked back to our rental apartment, got organized, and then went out to rent ourselves a couple of bicycles.  After a couple of false starts we found an outfit willing to rent us two city bikes, so we took off to see if we could find the bike path along the Lez River one of the main waterways that runs north/south through Montpelier.

Walking in the old part of the city:

Botanical gardens. This is a pomegranate bush:

Montpellier's miniature Arc de Triumphe:

Door knocker. Amy noticed a couple of them styled in this same way -- this seems to be a tradition here in the city?

Botanical gardens again:

Lunch:

While walking around on the way back we happened upon this odd-looking van. The outfit is some sort of high-wire construction/repair contractor -- if you can only repair something on your building by hanging from a rope 50 feet up in the air, apparently these are the guys to call.

Off on our post-lunch bike ride. This is in an area of the city called "Antigone" (not sure why).

Very cool-looking apartment building right on the shore of the river -- we read on a sign that it is nick-named "L'Arbe Blanc" (the White Tree).

We weren't quite sure where to go on our ride, so we just followed a series of bike paths out to the east of the city; it was still a nice outing.

After that it was back to the apartment to shower and cook some of the various ingredients we'd purchased for dinner (green beans, spinach, fresh pasta).

Thursday:

Today was a biking day -- we hopped on our bikes fairly early and made out way back to the river area, where we picked up a route heading south. It turns out that there is a very nice bike path that follows the bank of the river and goes all the way down to the ocean, to a resort town called Palavas.  It was a great bike ride, nice and smooth, not too much traffic, very enjoyable.

The river itself was pretty low but still active; in a couple of spots we could see swarms of fish zooming around and jumping (it wasn't clear whether they were jumping up out of the water to catch bugs, or whether they were smaller fish jumping up to avoid some larger fish down below).

We got to the seaside and then made our way along a sort of barrier island to the west to an old cathedral, the Cathedrale de Maguelone, we stopped and poked around. Very old, originally built in Roman times, but then more or less continually destroyed and then rebuilt, fortified and then abandoned, leaving it in a somewhat weather-worn state in the present (or so it would seem).

After that we spent some time on the beach -- one advantage of biking is that you can get to the nice unspoiled beaches by going a bit farther on wheels than other folks are willing to go on foot.   I actually packed my bathing suit for a swim, and I tested the water, but finally chickened out (no fresh water shower available, and I didn't want to have salt-covered skin for the bike ride back). We also discovered after a bit that this is the place where the nudists come to enjoy the seaside -- there was a scattering of French folk (only men however) who were enjoying being in the buff.

Photos -- on the beach:

The bike ride:

This was an interestingly-looking apartment building along the way:

The bike path:

A frieze / bas-relief from the cathedral:

Interior of the cathedral:

More bike path shots:

The beach: a lovely piece of sand

We had a nice bike ride back, then spent an annoyingly long time wrangling with logistical details: first returning the rental bikes, and then arranging to be at the apartment for some sort of "checkup" or "checkin" that the owner had requested to make sure we were not mistreating the place.  In between we managed to get in a short shopping expedition and have lunch & shower.

At around five we hopped on the tram again to head out to the soccer stadium via tram to take in our second world cup game between Australia and Brazil -- this time we were definitely rooting for Australia. Photos:

Bigger crowd this time (around 17 thousand), fans were a good deal more vocal. As luck would have it we were sitting in a mostly Australian supporter section, so there were a lot of yellow shirts and twangy accents. 

The match was a good one -- both teams played very aggressively and handled the ball well, lots of good passing and plenty of scoring. The Brazilians seemed to have the edge when it came to 1-on-1 play and trick plays, but the Australians were more methodical and were better at applying pressure in the midfield to force turnovers and gain possession.  We saw Steph Catley, the defensive back whose family we had met on the wine tour -- she was good, speedy and unflappable. 

Brazil scored first on a penalty kick (very questionably penalty if you ask me), then their big star Cristiane scored at about 35 minutes on a fabulous header. At that point were were worried that the Aussie goose was cooked, but they kept the pressure up and managed to grab a goal just before halftime, and then equalize a ways into the second half.  They did get a bit of luck; there was a play in which the Australians had sent a ball in to try to reach their forwards, then when the Brazilian defender tried to head it out, it scooted off at an odd angle and went right into the goal.  At that point the Australians just held on for dear life and managed to finish the game ahead, final score 3-2.

It was fun to sit with the fans from down under; they had a cool cheer that they would do every now and then: video.  There was lots of commentary, and it was clear that they knew the names of most of the players.    My vote for best player on the pitch was #13 Yallop, a midfielder who seemed to be just about everywhere.

It was an enjoyable game with a much higher energy level and a lot more scoring than the first match we saw. Tram ride back was uneventful.

Friday:

We got packed, cleaned up the apartment, then headed out to the train station around 8ish to catch a 9am train to Carcassonne.   The TGV was very nice indeed, speedy, quiet, lots of room ... very civilized way to get around. The route goes along the coast for about half of the way and then swings inland, took maybe an hour and a half. We walked south from the station into the city for about 10 minutes to the B&B that Amy had picked out, dropped our bags, and then walked up to Cité de Carcassonne, the fortifications up the hill from the main part of town. We walked around for an hour and half or so, took in all of the various castle-related stuff.  It was interesting although it's pretty clear that a lot of it has been reconstructed in various ways. Weather was definitely cooler than in Montpellier (maybe the influence of the nearby Pyrenees mountains.

Nice lunch at a local restaurant (Amy picked the one with the Michelin star, huzzah), we did the prix fixe.  Photos:

The B&B is in a nice older building with high ceilings and tasteful decoration; it is a good deal more spare than our Montpelier place, but nice for what it is.  After lunch we did a little shopping and wandering around, then finally came back to get some down time at the room.

Tomorrow our plan is to rent bicycles and do a ride along the Canal Du Midi, which runs right through the center of town.

Saturday: 

Nice breakfast at the B&B, then it was off to rent bicycles for a morning ride. We had to cool our heels a bit since the rental place didn't open until 10, but it was worth the wait. We rented from Alter-ride on Rue Courtejaire, a place not too far away, and it turned out to be a good pick.  We biked east on the path next to the Canal Du Midi; it's a gravel/dirt path in mostly good condition, and hugs the waterline so you get a good view of the canal and the boats. Fair amount of boat traffic at least at that hour of the morning; boats are on the small-to-medium size (they look as though they are carefully crafted to insure that they fit into all of the locks). 

Very pleasant bike ride -- we rode about 12km or so to the neighboring town of Trèbes, then kept going for another 2-3km just to see what we could see (at that point it looked to be getting even more rural, so we decided to turn around and head back).  The path seemed to be well taken care of; I had been worried that there would be beat-up sections or that we might have to take detours, but this was not the case.

Bunch of other bikers on the path, mostly our demographic, some looking very hard-bitten (long haul touring types) and others more recreational.  A number of electric bikes as well (this is an option when you rent these days), and we also ran into a group of horses, which was a bit unexpected. About halfway back it started to rain lightly, so we picked up the pace and went a little faster. All in all I think we spent a little less than four hours in the saddle.

A pair of guys rowing:

Here is the group of horses we're about to overtake...

Signage at one of the locks:

After returning the bikes we had lunch at Au Lard et Au Cochon on Rue Denisse just off the main square in the Bastide.  We decided it would be fun to order a meat-heavy main meal after our exertions, so Amy ordered the cassoulet and I had lamb shanks -- very tasty indeed (and lots of food). 

While walking we came across a tattoo parlor with this in the window:

Train ride back to Montpellier at around 3, then it was off to a hotel that Amy had booked us into not far from the airport.  Hotel was a bit off the beaten path but it had a nice pool and fitness room, so we got a chance to get a nice workout and sit reading for a bit in the shade. 

The dinner options seemed rather slim but luckily there was a good middle eastern place about 300 meters walk away, Beyrouth Restaurant; we ordered a big plate of fatoush (which was excellent), along with some stuffed grape leaves and a really nice plate of smoky, lemony eggplant (yum, perfect followup to our carnivorous lunch).

Sunset after dinner:

Sunday: 

Off to the airport for the lengthy trip back. This time we had to hustle in the Amsterdam airport -- we had a little over an hour for the connection which was just barely enough given that we had to go through passport control and make a long hike between terminals. We surived, however, and it was good to see Reed when we finally got home :-).