Montpellier satellite summary

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Full Montpellier photosets: Andy’s (flickr) | Nick’s (SimpleViewer)

Since Day 11 was the big day in Montpellier, I posted the train-from-Rome day and the Montpellier-party-day out of sequence so you’d see the fun stuff first. Click ahead to go back to Day 10’s trans-Italian train ride and Lyon France transfer escapade.

Early riders

Train to Montpellier There was a moment of collective panic on the Montpellier platform where one of the two train sections didn’t arrive until seconds before departure time. Luckily, this fella hooked us up. Arrival at Gare Saint Roch Sunday morning. June 21st. Summer solstice. Southern France. Hoping to make up for time lost during our Lyon overnight transfer snafu, we hopped an 8:15 AM train from Lyon. That put us in central Montpellier before 10 AM, well ahead of our Irish hosts’ rise-and-shine schedule, so we backpacked gingerly into the thick of an outdoor labyrinth of ancient alleyways toward our new home base. Breakfast baguette & brews Montpellier is an impossibly compact and charming historic city in the south of France. We backpacked within a couple blocks of our destination, ordered up deux cafés and deux bières from a sunny patio eatery, and waited for our hosts to wake up. We also supplemented the elixirs with deux of the most delicious almond croissants of all time from Boulangerie Pâtisserie nextdoor. Style sidenote The cafe was rockin some low-decibel-but-thumpin goa-psytrance beats, for a Sunday morning, with employees all dredd’d and tatt’d out, giving me a false early sense that we were in a rowdy-edgy beach town. Not sure where those folks went by nightfall – not that Montpellier didn’t know how to turn the Solstice into a bumpin street party, but you never saw such a collared-shirts and hush-puppies crowd. Similar to the Romans in stylistic conformity… except, minus the style. No offense Montpellierians – it is, after all, a college and 20-something town, and y’all looked a lot more put together than folks on any campus I ever went to.

The digs

We finished our cafes, bieres, and magical almond croissants and moseyed over to Brian's apartment. Many knocks, no response. Were we not loud enough? They had a gig with their traditional Irish band as part of the festival that afternoon, had they already headed off to gear up for that? Half-convinced that we'd be lugging the frame packs the rest of the day, we roamed the streets a bit more before calling up from a payphone. After a couple attempts and some hand-wringing, the payphone rang us back and Brian was on the line. Saved! The bleary-eyed lads in the flat had had a big night, and another big night was to come. Baguette and brie lured the troops to the kitchen for some banter about Trinity College, 3D gaming engines, and the women of France… before half the crew retreated to their cribs for a late-morning nap. Michael, a relatively recent arrival from Canada who was also in the band, seemed the least-scathed by hangover and offered to show us around town.

OMGoth

Cathedrale Saint-Pierre (a.k.a. another St. Peter, I realized after the trip) A gigantic stone goliath packed like a sardine into the mix of town, with its quintessentially Gothic pointed arches, flying buttresses, ornate windows, and front entryway flanked by ICBMs. And garoyles – LOTS of gargoyles. They sure knew how to get their freak on back in the 1360s. Two other majorly Gothic churches cropped up during our street festival tour that evening, but Saint Pierre was the big-daddy. St. Roch Church Though no match for Saint-Pierre in size and gothic grandeur, St. Roch is right in the thick of town and it’s front and side plazas were bustling with activity. The “reflection” (painting) of the church facade across the front plaza was a nifty gag illusion. You can sorta make it out in the lower left of the large bottom photo.

Day sightseeing

Peyrou Promenade and the Saint Clément aqueduct From Brian’s pad we strolled down Rue Foch, flanked by Versailles-esque Classical facades, over to the Peyrou Promenade and Gardens. The promenade sits above a reservoir that’s channeled via the Saint Clément aqueduct – 17th century Roman-style engineering in action. Botanical Gardens A few blocks further along we popped into the Montpellier Botanical Gardens, notable for its funky succulents and eeevil-eyed mini-turtles. Patio pit stop amidst crackling amplifiers Quick stop for courtyard brewskies on the stroll back to home base. As we wandered back we began hearing amps and PA systems revving up in alleyways from all directions. A French solstice soiree was brewing.

Fête de la Musique

Afternoon tunes The crackle and hum of amps sputtering to life echoed throughout plazas and alleyways at every turn as we made our way back to the flat. As with Rome, nothing was ever visible beyond the alleyway or mini plaza immediately ahead. The buildings are separated by narrow walkways so similar in size and style to one another that you get the feeling you’re wandering through one continuous outdoor maze, occasionally spilling out onto a patio or the steps of a giant cathedral or armory. Every other elbow in the maze revealed another stage and crowd of folks bopping to reggae, punk, jazz-funk, house beats, a conga cavalry – each one plunked down in front of one neoclassical edifice or another. France’s finest traditional Irish quartet The soundcheck cacophony followed us the whole way to our hosts’ evening gig outside Fitzpatrick’s, an Irish pub where host Brian and Michael’s quartet “Route Barreé” livened up a gathering crowd with a spirited arsenal of traditional Irish tunes. Frenchy air guitarists… sac le bleu! The whole street festival had great energy, though there was one low point: an air guitar competition. Set at one of the bigger stages back at the Peyrou Promenade, the performances and the crowd’s reactions reinforced any notion I may have had that the French just don’t get rock-n-roll. _AT ALL_. After a few minutes of shock-treatment victims being paraded across stage, I had to get out of there before my American attitude got me into trouble. Despite the ruckus, the promenade was very scenic at dusk. Reggae on Rue Rebuffy As soon as the sun went down, Nick’s commandant hat reappeared, instantly making him the most prominent authority figure for blocks. Some reggae in a small park off the main street began quickly got my mind off the Frenchy air guitar horrors I’d just witnessed. Kebabs After strolling off in a couple different directions, we made a pit stop for Kebabs (the European equivalent of late-night pizza or tacos) at an alley cafe called Tempo to relax and regroup. Nick and his hat were in top form, so I let the video roll for a bit of classic Commandant Gray banter. In this installment, Nick elaborates on the 12-boulevard traffic spectacle surrounding the Arc de Triomphe, which snuck its way into my video montage of Paris. Castle trance-a-lot Castle dance party! I feel like this is the sort of thing you always hear about happening in Europe, so I got a kick out of witnessing it. The music wasn’t our scene, but the setup at this spot was epic. Plotting party takeover Nick’s mock-captain’s hat, visible from anywhere due to Nick’s relative height over the French 20somethings, helped keep our party posse from losing each other as we zig-zagged through crowds across town. It also added to our entertainment by inviting a number of spontaneous salutes and confessions, and prompted Nick to offer up some hilarious “clean up your act kids” commentary. Even the comparatively diminutive Gendarmes cleared a path for us. At one point I swear one even responded to Nick’s “he went that-a-way” gesture by, well, going that-a-way. But they were generally focusing their energies on unruly French-speaking revelers in our wake. Not that there was much unruliness to speak of, this was a surprisingly clean-cut, well-behaved, under-expressive crowd we were mixed in. A single napsack of party hats, LED blinkware, or even a half-assed group costume theme would have OWNED the scene, probably making the front page of tomorrow’s paper and being etched into community lore for decades (don’t tempt me Montpellier…) To San Franciscans: You can’t imagine a more bay2breaker-ish street-party setup feeling any less like bay2breakers. Place de la Comedie We passed through this buzzing central plaza en route to our final (and longest) side-trek of the night. Encore at Sainte-Anne’s Church After just about everything else had shut down, this little scene was still going off just a few blocks from our hosts’ place. I wouldn’t say it redeemed my belief in French rock-n-roll, but the Gothic church square backdrop didn’t hurt the cause.

Full Montpellier photosets: Andy’s (flickr) | Nick’s (SimpleViewer)

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