Montpellier

Sunday, September 30th

We were originally going to spend the day in nearby Arles, but decided to sleep in and have a late breakfast on the hotel terrace instead:

Because it had rained most of the night, the only outdoor dry tables were under the awning, which we had to ourselves (given the hour - 10:00am!);

After breakfast we headed off to explore some more - the small street of the hotel was almost deserted, even at this (late) hour:

We had planned to visit the botanical gardens, but were aware that they didn't open until 12:00pm. A lot of parks and gardens are locked at night, presumably for security reasons, and to stop vagrants and the like spending the night inside (though we didn't see many of them anyway):

The gardens belong to the Faculty of Medicine (!) of the university, and unfortunately didn't look particularly well looked after. The odd calistemon seemed to be dying through lack of water, and there were weeds everywhere.

Besides, what other botanical gardens would devote a whole section to bamboo?! (aside - there was a lot of bamboo along some stretches of the Canal du Midi as well).

 Meanwhile, up in the lovely park which overlooks the old city there was an open air antique fair underway.

Now we already know that the French will eat any kind of animal, but it appears they will still also wear them as well.

Prue even found the door knocker that she had been looking for all week! Unfortunately, it was 150 euros ($200) and about 20 kg - it's not coming home:

The afternoon was taken up with various kinds of entertainment. Firstly, a Palestinian musical "protest" as part of a festival of Montpellier "twin cities" (Bethlehem being one of them):

A jazz band in the main plaza (we're having coffee and people watching):

And some very cute (according to Prue) Brasilian boys doing some incredibly skillful acrobatics. We then walked the streets looking for a concert we'd seen advertised that morning.

Ah, hah...here they are! A Freddie Mercury look alike and his female companion doing an appalling English language song whose lyrics appear to have been "my blue Cadillac" repeated over and over.

The weather continued to improve throughout the afternoon, and by drinks time it was balmy. We were briefly entertained by some impromptu "a capella" singing by a wandering group of extroverts outside our favourite church. Were they religious, or did they get the joke? Who knows?!

Dinner was in a nice restaurant we researched during the afternoon. The view from our (outside) table was of two bars which Prue described as "holes in the wall", and whose clientele were either students or "beautiful people".

The Egg?!