Antigone

An exciting day here in Montpellier yesterday: we went grocery shopping - to four different places! - and for a long walk. Oh, we do have adventures!

Yesterday was supposed to be relatively warm - 9C or so - with sun and little wind, a good day to go walkabout given that we're in for a Med-style deep freeze in the next few days (low single digits C). Canadian readers will be glad to hear that snow is even a possibility. We had been wondering why the shoe stores here sell high winter boots. Now we know: it's for those once-in-a-blue-moon snowfalls.

Place de la Comédie

The morning plan was to check out one or more of Montpellier's many fruit and vegetable markets. We found a website that listed them and gave the days on which they were open. The first we tried was supposed to be at the end of the Place de la Comédie by the Esplanade park we visited yesterday, presumably an outdoor market. We thought we remembered it being there when we came ten years ago (in May). No sign of it today, no clue why - maybe too cold for the stall holders, or the local growers have nothing to sell right now.

We went into the tourist office, which is right there, and asked for directions to the nearest one that was open. The agent sent us to a covered market several blocks away which was very small, with many of the stalls closed. In fairness, it was Monday, a traditional closing day for shops here. It also, though, seemed a market for posher folk than us - trop cher.

Antigone (read on)

The next on the list, which we found by ourselves using our tourist map, turned out to be about four blocks from home. It's for ordinary folk, but it's also not very big, and many of the stalls were closed yesterday. The markets here, so far, are nothing like the fabulous places we frequented in Valencia. We'll have to do further research to see if there are better ones. We did end up buying some nice-looking fruit and veg at the little local market, including the last pineapple we're likely to buy in France. When we looked at the bill at home, it turned out we'd paid €7. Eeek!

The big find on our next stop, at the local Carrefour, was boxed wine. Woo-hoo! Wine in bottles appears to be generally more expensive here than it was in Spain, although there are a few really inexpensive bottles, between €2 and €3. The one we've tried so far, a Sauvignon blanc, is not bad - not great, but not bad. Cava, Karen and Caitlin's regular tipple, is disappointingly expensive, only slightly less than the exorbitant, tax-heavy price we pay at home.

Antigone

Our after-lunch plan, made while eating said meal, was to check out Antigone, a very ambitious urban development project just east of the centre, with apartments, shops, offices and public buildings. We had glimpsed it from the car on our way in from the airport and Gilles recommended it as a good place to visit. He was right.

Antigone (that's Karen on the left)

The architect responsible is the Catalonian Ricardo Bofill, about whom I knew nothing, but who is apparently a star in the architecture world. The style is neo-classical: very clean and symmetrical. The squares are decorated with reproductions of classical sculptures. The housing projects even have classical names. (This is interesting given that Montpellier has virtually no classical history, unlike other cities and towns in this region.) In any case, it's an impressive place, although Karen read something online suggesting it has not been a raging success. It was eventually supposed to extend all the way to the sea - some ten kilometers away - with more walkways and plazas, but then came 2008. It's still an impressive place, and obviously cost tens of millions of Euros.

Antigone

Olympic pool, Antigone

Antigone, at the River Lez

We ended up our walk down by the River Lez, which flows to the sea, and along which there is a bike path that we will certainly try. Across the river, Antigone kind of peters out, but there is an Institute of International Studies, or something, with interesting architecture, and a sculpture court. The place in front of the Institute is named for the Revolution, and features busts of revolutionary figures, presumably more reproductions of historic works - although these do all appear to be real bronze. Danton is here, looking like the arrogant prick he must have been. No Robespierre that I could see. It mostly seemed to be busts of aristos and other guillotined counter-revolutionaries. Equal time for the vanquished.

Institute of International Studies, Danton

We wended our way back to the centre, through mostly nondescript areas of town, ending at Place de la Comédie, where we found a large Monoprix (another big French supermarket chain) that we hadn't noticed before. There we discovered, as I had hoped we would find in France, relatively inexpensive single-malt scotch. Yay. I bought a bottle of 12-year-old Aberlour for less than I'd pay at home. Karen, lucky girl, got a sub-€2 bottle of local sparkling wine. (Hee-hee.) And so home to our lovely apartment.

If you aren't envious yet, wait until you hear the best part. Shortly after we got back to the apartment, Karen received an email from Fitbit, congratulating her for walking over 15,000 steps today, three times the North American daily average. As a result, she has won the coveted Urban Boot Award. We think this is is a purely virtual accolade but, who knows, maybe a boot-shaped trophy is winging its way to us even now, or at least a little embroidered badge. Well done, Karen!