Tuesday was our last big bike ride with the Hutes. We rode out along the tram-line path to Pérols, a bedroom community south and east of the city (towards the sea, not far from Palavas, the place we went the first time we rode to the Mediterranean). Pérols is situated on the 'étang de l'Or, a salt water lagoon separated from the sea by a spit of land. It's about 9 or 10 kilometers of pretty easy cycling from the apartment.
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| Pérols |
When we got to Pérols, we rode down first into an area referred to on signposts as the Port, at the edge of the étang. It appears there is some commercial fishing here or was. There were nets piled on the shore, fishing boats as well as pleasure craft in the small marina, and poles sticking up out of the water far out, suggesting some kind of mollusc fishery, I think.
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| Pérols |
We dawdled around in the port area while I took some photographs. The light on the mirror-like water of the lagoon was quite lovely; it was hard to tell where water ended and sky began.
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| Pérols |
We started the ride back on a path on the other side of the highway from the main bike path. It at first followed the shoreline of the étang. We were trying to find a way to get closer to the water so we could maybe see the flamingos visible in the distance from the Port. It was not to be. We rode down a couple of lane ways but came to places where there were
Privée - Entrée Interdit signs and dogs barking wildly from every property, so we didn't go any further. Well, Pat and Ralph, not noticing one sign, did go further; luckily, nobody shot them.
We kept following the path along the highway towards Montpellier and finally came to a place where it looked as if it would take us over the roadway to pick up the main bike path again. But it didn't. It dumped us at the side of the highway and we had to scuttle across when there was a break in traffic. We went back to the Lattes turn-off and rode the way Karen and I had ridden a couple of days before. This time we made all the right turns and quickly made it to Port Ariane, where we had a picnic in the sun by the little
bassin: baguette, cheese, cookies, apples, beer.
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| Port Ariane |
By the time we got back to Montpellier, riding the rest of the way along the river path, and turned in the Hutes VeloMagg bikes and put ours away, we'd been out over four hours. My bum was sore.
The Hutes, whose turn it was to cook, declared it my unofficial birthday dinner. It came complete with a very silly card, and two welcome gifts - a giant bag of jujubes and a book of Sudoku puzzles. Thanks Ralph and Pat!
Wednesday was their last day here. Ralph was agitating for another bike ride - the man is obsessed -but we held out for meandering around the city. It wasn't completely aimless, we did head first for the Carré Ste.-Anne, the contemporary art gallery housed in an old church. It's a beautiful and beautifully restored building, and a fantastic place for showing art. The exhibit was terrific too: large, romantic/surrealist (my description) canvasses by a young Swiss artist,
Léopold Rabus. Many are disturbing, some downright gruesome, all slightly perplexing - altogether a very striking exhibit.
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| Montpellier, Carré Ste-Anne gallery, Léopold Rabus exhibit |
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| Montpellier, Carré Ste-Anne gallery, detail of Léopold Rabus painting |
We wandered on, through the Place de la Comédie, at least once, and ended up at a little restaurant near the St. Roch church, Toast' Tea. This was the warmest day so far - it got up over 21C - and it was very, very nice to sit in the sun over lunch. We kept going in the afternoon and checked out the Jardins des Plantes again to see if anything new was blooming, or any other paths were open - they weren't. Then through the cathedral area, checking out the courtyard of the attached Faculty of Medicine building, back to the Place de la Comédie for a drink in a cafe, then home.
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| Near Ste.-Anne church |
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| Cathedral |
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| Cathedral |
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| Layers of History |
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| Spring comes to the Esplanade |
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| Look up! Place de la Comédie |
In the early evening, we came back to Comédie so Pat and Ralph could see what it was like in the twilight with all the activity. Quite a scene.
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| Place de la Comédie, le bubbleiste |
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| The Opéra - Ralph goes for a ride |
In the morning, I helped them drag their luggage down to Place de l'Europe and waited with them until the navette came. Bon voyage PnR, enjoy Paris!
That afternoon, Karen and I took a long walk down to Port Mariane where they had told us at the tourist office we might be able to see the construction site of the first of Montpellier's Architectural Folies of the 21st Century, a series of buildings commissioned by the city in a competition to attract top international architects. There hasn't been much written about the first one, which was awarded last year. Nor was there any obvious sign of its construction down at Port Mariane - although there are all sorts of other interesting-looking buildings being built.
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| Port Marianne |
The modern follies are named after a handful of outlandish, suburban palaces built around the city in the 18th and 19th century. The second of the 21st century projects, the Arbre Blanc, designed by a consortium of firms, including Sou Fujimoto Architects, Nicolas Laisné Associates, and Manal Rachdi Oxo Architects, is truly wild - check out the artist's rendition below. It will be built right on the Lez River between Port Mariane and Antigone apparently. We can't make out where exactly, but it appears they will have to take down some existing buildings to make way for it. It won't be finished until 2017, and hasn't broken ground yet.
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| Arbre Blanc, artist's rendition |
Port Mariane, quite aside from the folly that will eventually be built there, is an interesting place, a public/private planned development sponsored by the city, like Antigone, but with strikingly modern architecture. There is nothing as wild-looking as the White Tree, but it's still a pretty cool place. We also stumbled on an interesting scultpural project, again commissioned by the city, by the French artist Guy Ferrer. The theme is "tolerance," and it consists of eight 1.4 meter high bronzes, most with figures and faces, but forming the letters of the word "tolerance." They stand at the edge of a park - quite striking.
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| Guy Ferrer sculpture, detail of letter 'L' |
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| Guy Ferrer sculpture, detail of letter 'T' |
We walked home by the new city hall - it was a real architectural tour - and went into the centre of the building. It's gorgeous. One wonders, though, why a city this size needs such a massive city hall. According to the French Wikipedia, the entire "agglomeration" - the metropolitan area - only has a population of 400,470. But we do know that Montpellier is the fastest growing city in France with, according to one source we were reading, 1,000 people moving to the city each week.
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| Montpellier, new City Hall |
And so home for a quiet evening in.
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