[This is the 6th stop on our Summer Friendship Tour and picks up from our last stop in Alès to visit the town and area where Julien spent his Rotary Youth Exchange.]
Our next stop was Montpellier, only about an hour away from Alès, and one of my favorite cities in France! This is a place that has so much AND is close to the beautiful beaches of the Mediterranean.
We have been back many times because this is where Scott lived and taught English and where he befriended a brilliant local English teacher, Albert. If you have ever heard me tell the story of a dashing Frenchman who hand-fed 23-year old me squid in its own ink, this is him. I have beautiful memories of meals and stories shared together over the years. He and the ever-elegant & gracious Elisabeth were the reason for our too-quick 1 night-stop on our way to Spain. (Fun fact: Elisabeth went to the same high school in France that Julien attended!)
We visited their fabulous new apartment right in downtown Montpellier, where they can get everywhere by foot or by taking the tram. They got us settled across the street in the swanky Hotel de la Métropole, where Hélène de Savoie, the Queen of Italy and the Princess of Montenegro resided from1949-1950. Our connecting rooms were palatial and air-conditioned, with cloud-like beds, and after a swim in the courtyard pool, the kids decided they just wanted to chill in their room instead of joining us for an evening stroll before dinner. (This looks like such a splurge hotel, but in fact it costs less than half of what I paid for a sketchy motel room in Sarasota, FL when the kids were traveling last year. Seriously, check out the link to see reservations, and then remember it for when you go to Montpellier! It's shocking to a lot of Americans that travel in Europe is so much more affordable.) This hotel is part of Oceania Hotels Group and based on our experience, I highly recommend it.
I really enjoyed our long walk with Albert & Elisabeth, and they showed us some of the smaller streets and parts of the city I don't remember seeing before. This is such a beautiful city, full of both grand architecture and hidden squares lined with cafés and tables. It's a vibrant city of arts, of history and of students. I might have declared that I prefer Montpellier to Paris during that walk.
It was in a really sweet square, passing by a café where I thought I recognized a Rotary Exchange student, Pauline, who had visited our house a few times while she was on exchange here in Connecticut, going back 8 years. Scott stopped at her table to ask if it was her, and understandably, she wasn't sure who we were at first - I mean, what are the odds? What a great surprise, especially since she lives in Brussels now, and was just home visiting friends & family.
After our pre-dinner stroll, Albert & Elisabeth pulled out all the stops with an amazing, enormous paella. I imagine they were eating it for days after we left!
Scott & I got up before the kids and after a lovely breakfast at the hotel, we went out for one more walk across the city before meeting up with Albert & Elisabeth to say our goodbyes. We have another friend who lives in the city, and hadn't been able to connect with him, so we tried the address we had for him. We hadn't seen Sebastian since his wedding in Perpignan, France over 20 years ago. It was a unique wedding for the area because it was a Korean wedding, and as weddings in France happen first at the city hall, the mayor asked to have a photo to hang there because the bride & groom looked so fabulous in their Korean wedding robes. (We had a blast on that trip - our friends from Rome had come to collect us in Barcelona and we spent 2 weeks exploring the Pyrenees, the Basque region of Spain, & southern France with 5 of us in a tiny Fiat before we all attended the wedding in Perpignan.)
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| Our group of friends at Sebastian's wedding 2001 |
We did not find Sebastian home, but Scott left a photo of the 2 of them from maybe 30 years back, in the door. Later Seb reached out to say they'd been away on vacation, and a neighbor had grabbed the photo for him. We'll catch him next time!
Saying goodbye to Albert & Elisabeth always makes me sad, because you never know when we'll get to see each other again. They have built such a beautiful life, and they're the most adventurous travelers, and they have a place in my heart.
We retrieved our car from the parking garage and started the 2 + hour drive to Besalu, Spain! Come back for Chapter 7 of our Summer Travels!
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