Montpellier
What a cool place. From the moment I arrived at Gare St Roch I had the feeling I was in a special place. The trams are painted in funky colours suggesting a city comfortable in its flamboyant clothes. My feeling of good humour was enhanced as I walked past the Comedy Driving School on the way to my Airbnb home stay.
Place de la Comédie was a short walk away – a grand square overlooked by the Comédie Theatre at one end, trams ambling along on the southern side and the large outdoor cafés flanking the north. This is the centre of the town with wide pedestrian streets radiating in all directions. My eyes were drawn to a grand boulevard, the tree-lined Allée Jean de Lattre de Tessigny.
L’Acqueduc St Clément
I renewed my personal fascination with the viaducts/aqueducts of Europe adding a new one to my collection, the 18th century Acqueduc St Clément which itself pays homage to the Pont du Gard built outside Nîmes. It ends at a square, Place du Peyrou which manifests the absolute power and reach of the French monarchy in the 17th century. At its city end there is an Arc de Triomphe, built to commemorate the long reign of Louis XIV (the Sun King). Louis sits astride his horse overlooking all in the centre of the square.
A more poignant memorial is the plaque dedicated to Jean Moulin, an iconic leader of the French Resistance during WWII.
My visit coincided with the annual Architecture Vives festival: a series of artworks located in the courtyards of buildings dotted around the city. It reminded me a little of the Documenta festival from Kassel, but these works are set to be more ephemeral. It was a joyful experience navigating the city streets along with its citizens and many schoolchildren, and having my brochure adorned with a new sticker at each artwork along the route.
Le Papillon D’Or
NOfish
Cour d’Eau et de Fleurs
Notre Nid
Transformé
Coupé - Grand Soleil
Also ephemeral was my performance in the French soap opera, Grand Soleil. I blundered on to the set in Place du Marché aux Fleurs and was quickly ushered away from the ambit of the camera lens. Not quite my Andy Warhol moment.
But Grand Soleil seems to conform to the global format – intense conversations can only happen in cafés. Was it an illicit liaison, a parting of the ways, the sharing of a confidence? I will never know, and my life is certainly the poorer for that. L’ignorance is le bonheur.
Did I say that I liked Montpellier?
