A burger and Orangina under the pine tree on Place de Castellane is a good way to spend a few hours on a sunny Saturday.

The Languedoc summer provides perfect conditions for an outdoor meal of tapas, accompanied by well-selected bottles of Rioja and Pic Saint-Loup in the old town. It’s great to catch up with friends, and after so many months in Paris, it’s nice to remember that the Spanish border is not so far away after all…

My visit to Montpellier coincided with the Comédie du Livre – apparently the second-largest book festival in France – bringing hundreds of authors and BD artists into town.  Fans of all ages flocked to the tents set up on the Place de la Comédie and the Esplanade to get that personal dédicace from their favourite author or dessinateur.

To complement the burgers and tapas, some intellectual nourishment was in order. On Sunday I attended a live broadcast of L’Esprit Public on Radio France Culture, held in Montpellier as part of the festival.

I am fascinated by the particularly French respect for “talking heads”, and the broadcast featured some heavy hitters of the French intello-politico-media-élite: historian and member of the French Academy Max Gallo, politician Jean-Louis Bourlanges, journalist Philippe Labarde, and law professor Dominique Rousseau.

Philipe Meyer played the role of genial animateur, orchestrating the egos and brainpower at his disposal with alacrity and humour.  The topics for the show were the European deficit crisis and reform of the French education system. You can listen here.

The often controversial right-wing polemicist Eric Zemmour was supposed to participate in a live debate on Sunday afternoon. Having seen Monsieur Zemmour many times on television I was looking forward to seeing some sparks fly. But for some last minute reasons he was unable to travel to Montpellier for the festival.

Despite Zemmour’s absence, his “opponent” Jean-Francois Kahn delivered a fascinating session on the dangers of groupthink and la pensée unique – Kahn was highly critical of the French media and its role as a critic and commentator.

Keeping up with all that abstract debate was thirsty work – and there is no better way to round off a weekend in the south of France than with a pastis at sunset!

With up to 80 local farmers and producers turning up each week, this is Montpellier’s premier source of fresh food in Montpellier – always worth a stop if you’re in town on a Saturday or a Tuesday!

Ruined farmhouses in the arrière-pays

Asking directions from the locals, somewhere in the garrigue

Marsillargues cherries bought fresh from the Marché des Arceaux

Orangina, shady trees and a boules tournament in Sommières

Oh, and vineyards. Lots and lots of vineyards.

The landlady is on holiday, and so she lent me her carkeys for the week. Today was an opportunity to head southwest of Montpellier along some backroads to the lower reaches of the Hérault – the river which gives its name to Montpellier’s départment.

Pézenas is one of the oldest towns in Languedoc, and was spared development in the 19th century when the trainline to Paris was pushed through to Béziers, largely leaving Pézenas wallowing as a sleepy market town. However the place has been well and truly discovered by holiday-makers and the expat retiree set. Saturday is market day, and the license plates in the carpark signalled significant number of shoppers from Nijmegen, Brussels and Düsseldorf.

The crowds in Pézenas were a little oppressive, so after buying a few vegetables for tomorrow’s lunch, I hightailed it south to Agde, where midday was beckoning, and the the cool grey streets were altogether more agreeable and quiet. Reposing beside the river in its unusual sombre stone architecture, Agde is celebrating its 2600th birthday this year (the place was founded as an Ionian Greek colony in 500 B.C.). A shady spot beside the fishing boats provided the perfect venue for lunch: a sandwich jambon beurre and a can of Orangina.

The beach was too close and too tempting to avoid, so a short drive took me to the mouth of the Hérault at Grau d’Agde,  a fairly low-key beach village by Mediterranean standards. Shoes were thrown off and I dipped my pink Anglo-Saxon legs in the sea. Elsewhere on the beach, sandcastles were in progress.

The return loop from Agde took in the baking hot streets of Florensac (where eight years ago I spent a winter holiday with my uncle and aunt), and the remains of the Roman bridge at St Thibéry. The bridge originally carried the traffic of the Via Domitia, linking Spain to Italy, and the bridge remained in use for a thousand years after the Romans left, until a flood in the 16th Century washed part of it away.

The Via Domitia runs through Montpellier, but today its moden equivalent is the A9 autouroute, zooming in an arc through Languedoc parallel to the coast.  After a day driving in the sun, it was this rather faster road that brought me back to Montpellier, just in time to save my Pézenas vegetables from expiring in the heat.

Their holiday tales are recounted with a good dose of humour, whether describing the lovely weather or the cheapness of the wine in the supermarkets. But, as with many British tourists in France, Tony and Wendy consistently arrive everywhere at lunchtime, and everything is inevitably closed.

When you live in France, lunchtime closing is not something you notice, usually because you’re having lunch yourself (what else is there to do?). Tourists need to learn that lunchtime is important. They shouldn’t be spending that time doing unimportant things like arriving at places.

Anyway, here are a few highlights from their trip so far:

Paris
“…the Pompeidou centre – ugly mess. Finally we get to the Louvre and of course the Mona Lisa. You could spend all day in there, it’s massive, but you can only have so much culture per day so after more religious paintings than you can shake a stick at, along with some fine pottery, we escape to Starbucks for a well earned rest.”

Dogs in Limoges
“The French seem to have this obsession with small dogs – rats on leads – but today we saw the ultimate, a tiny dog in a pouch on the front of a motor bike and the dam thing even had a pair of goggles on. It’s just a pity they don’t know how to pick their dog muck up.”

Social Anthropology in Languedoc
“We really should have kicked the French out of this country, it’s wasted on these miserable specimens. It’s an age profile, the kids are friendly and respectful and chat every time they go past and then you have the elderly French who walk around with faces like a smacked arse and never speak.”

Boules near Perpignan
“Now this isn’t just old men, but it’s a complete cross section of society; all meet up; shaking hands; kissing – a bit dodgy some of that; and taking it all very seriously.”

Beziers
“A place that turns out to be scruffier and more depressing than Blackburn and it’s a nightmare to drive around…. It has a cathedral with fine sculptures, stained glass and frescoes, but it’s surrounded by scaffolding and anyway it’s closed for the most sacred ceremony – lunch. We get to walk through the Muslim quarter, free parking but will the car be there when we get back, very depressing. Not much character, the best bit is the flower market – how it all made us yearn for Blackburn! A few more clues to the place, they’re keen on Rugby and bullfights.”

Montpellier
“Montpellier is one of the nicest cities we’ve been to. Especially if you don’t have to drive around it. It’s a very young thriving city and we visit a place in the centre named the Egg* its full of fancy French style cafe’s, we sit having a coffee it’s opposite the Comedy Opera. Of course it’s MacDonalds, an excellent cup of coffee all for E1.30 and a front row seat for people watching.”

Well, at least they enjoyed Montpellier, even if they did visit McDonalds and witnessed a drugs bust.

Bon voyage, Tony et Wendy, bonne route, et bonne continuation!

*Images used in this post are all my own, and don’t illustrate Tony and Wendy’s trip.

On the forest path

Wild thyme

Languedoc sky

Sun, leaves

Poised for flight