Arriving in Montpellier - 9 May 2008
The Eurostar to Paris, that I booked, left St Pancras just before 9.00 a.m. This was an easy time of day, outside the rush hour, and involved a short tube ride from Kate and Bret’s apartment in Maida Vale. Having given Suzi her backpack, left my mallet with Kate and my croquet gear with Julie, the travelling was really easy and when there were steps and no escalators or lifts, there always seemed to be a kind person who’d help me with my big case.
I’d chosen to take the Eurostar as far as Lille and then change to a TGV to Montpellier. This was partly because the half hour change of platform was so easy at Lille as opposed to the 90 minute wait at Paris which involved a station change, not just a platform change. But I hadn’t realized that, on a Friday, the Eurostar would be packed with parents and children on their way to Paris Disneyland. In our carriage it was just one very large party so there was much merriment as they shouted greetings to each other from one end of the carriage to the other! I was quite glad to leave them to it when I got off the train at Lille and found my much quieter TGV train to Montpellier.
And here I had a real stroke of luck!! My companion sitting next to me on the train turned out to be a delightful woman called Jacqueline, who lives at La Grande Motte, half an hour south of Montpellier. She was very friendly and very willing to talk and so we had the most wonderful conversations and I learned a great deal about her, her life, Montpellier, and what I might look out for during my stay. She invited me warmly to telephone her as soon as I settled in, with a view to visiting her at her home.
Making arrangements for accommodation on the web can sometimes be fraught with danger! I booked one apartment early in the piece, only to find that by looking on another site containing comments from people who’d been there, it was likely to be a disaster. People said that the night club below the apartment didn’t stop throbbing until 4.00 a.m. and the street cleaning machinery started at 5.00 a.m!! What a prospect, and thank goodness for web sites that encourage people to report on their experiences. So I cancelled and rebooked somewhere else. But until you actually arrive, it’s a bit of a lottery, and I was hoping very much that it’d be OK, especially as it was for a stay of 27 days with four different visitors.
Jacqueline and I duly arrived at the railway station in Montpellier - Gare St Roch.
She recommended that I took a cab to the apartment as I didn't know where it was, nor did she, and nor did the information person at the station. Arriving at the end of the working day on a Friday wasn't helpful in terms of finding people to help and I’d been silly enough not to have googled the address in advance and printed myself a map! Jacqueline caught her bus home and I walked over to the taxi rank. But the taxi driver told me that it wasn’t far and gave me directions!
Estimating when I was about half way there, trailing my big case and cabin case behind me, I asked the way again and got completely different directions - back beyond where I'd come from! So I cut my losses, walked back to the station and started off again in a taxi!! Interestingly, the same taxi driver was at the front of the queue. I had to wonder whether he suggested to all potential passengers that they walk instead of hiring him!! Although it wasn't really very far, it was probably too far to walk with such a heavy case, after a long journey and with some residual jet lag, so it was a good decision.
I confess to feeling very excited. I'd arrived in Montpellier, the city I'd visited for about two hours for the very first time in 2007, and totally fallen in love with. What adventures awaited, I wondered.
The apartment, L’Appart’City, 29 boulevard Berthelot, Montpellier, is a total delight! How lucky I am! It’s only been open for a few months and there’s still quite a bit of external landscaping to be done as you can see from the photo.
As soon as I saw my room and found that the pull out bed was a double, I explained that I was expecting several single visitors during the course of the month, and they immediately transferred me to a room where the pull out turns into two single beds. This is what it looks like when the two single beds look like a sofa!
It’s amazing what can be done within a very small area with excellent planning! The apartment is approximately 24.5 sq m total size. Tiny! As a good friend remarked, I'm going to find my home back in New Zealand very big after this! The only room is about 12.5 sq m with a small alcove with a double wardrobe in it - shelves and hanging space. On the same wall there’s a very large sofa which transforms into two single beds, the same height. On the opposite wall you can see the desk about 1.5 metres long, with a flat screen television by the window end, and a small round dining table out of sight on the right and two chairs.
Beside the table there's a door to the passage. Within the passage, there's a tiny alcove for the kitchen which consists of a sink, draining board and double hob with cupboards over, a cupboard under the sink, the bottom half of which is a half dish washer. The laundry is done in the laundry within the complex! Beside the alcove is a door to the bathroom tiled from floor to ceiling, which contains a nice sized shower, a loo and vanity, and towel rail. It's all very new and very easy to enjoy.
When two people are ready for bed, the room transforms quickly and easily into a bedroom and the twin beds can be set up about a single bed apart. Amazing really!
The icing on the cake, from my point of view, is the 24/7 free internet access to my desk in my room!! This is the first time I’ve brought a lap top to Europe with me and it’s been a great decision. I’ve downloaded Skype and I can make phone calls to anyone I want to call world wide directly from my computer. I’ve made about half a dozen calls already to France and England and have so far paid the princely sum of one Euro!
Parking costs 6E a day below the complex and is very safe.
The whole complex is situated in a very quiet street, and so far I haven't heard anything from my room (except a cat). It isn’t much to look at from the outside, but it really is excellent within. The Intermarché is about 400m in one direction and the tram stops about 150m in the other. But it’s only about a 15 minute walk into the central city so it isn’t necessary to use the trams very often.
And so – I’d arrived at about 6.30 p.m. on a Friday with the prospect of my son, Adam, and his fiancée, Janice, arriving the next day. I couldn’t wait for the French adventure to start!