My first visitors in Montpellier - 10 May 2008

Adam and Janice, spent the weekend of 10-12 May with me, travelling here by train from Zurich.  It’s easy to walk here from the station so we’d deposited their bags and were back in the centre of the city in next to no time.  In the space of such a short visit, we walked our socks off and still didn’t cover more than half the city.  But we experienced plenty of action, and spent our first day together, dawdling down busy, narrow shopping streets, and eating dinner at a lovely café in the shadow of a beautiful gothic Church St Roch.  Notice the ‘Trompe l’œil ‘ (trick of the eye) on the building to the right in Place Saint Roch. 

On Sunday we explored some more, but we also spent a lot of the day café hopping and chatting.  This was breakfast, but there were many more café stops before dinner! 

Like this one where Adam surprised me with a lovely glass of champagne for all of us to celebrate Mothers’ Day in New Zealand at Place Jean-Jaurès. 

Not to mention eating our lunch time baguettes, while we watched international volley ball tournament games in the main square. 

And playing the fool beside one of the many fountains in the Corum.

It was wonderful to have such energetic and enthusiastic visitors for my first few days.  I really appreciated the fact that they’d travelled a long way by train for a very short visit, fitted in with their busy working lives.  It’s always good to have different perspectives on things and seeing the city through their eyes gave me insights I might have missed on my own.  They thought Montpellier was pretty special too!