Montpellier Et Ses Environs

I don't exactly know at what point the city of Montpellier became the focus of my thoughts and aspirations over the last year or so - I'd never even been there.  People I talked to who knew the city usually used adjectives such as 'vibrant', 'lovely', 'cool', but that's hardly enough to make the average sane person want to uproot a perfectly good life and defect to the other side of the world, to a city never before encountered. Nevertheless, I felt sure that this place would be 'the' place for us, and I had in my mind it would be akin to my favourite city, Edinburgh, but a warm and sunny, south of France golden version of Edinburgh, nestled on the banks of the Mediterranean. 

No wonder, then, that Montpellier had a great deal to live up to as it had been playing on my mind for over a year as our possible future home. Would I like it? Would Alex like it? Would Roly, Pepper and Oscar fit in here?
How reassuring, then, was it to park the pumpkin on Avenue Georges Clemenceau and walk into Place de la Comédie via Figuerolles, browsing through the weekly flea market, peering into fabric shop windows, stopping for coffee on the way in Place Castellane and feeling like I'd come home.  It was just as I'd imagined, and even better.  Older, more quirky, characterful, yet youthfully alert and purposeful, bustling with students on bicycles, shops twinkling with temptation, trams dividing crowds on their way to the seaside suburbs, gig guides stuck to old city walls and church doors, dogs lunching with their owners, cats sleeping wrapped around wrought iron balconies. 

Fabulous to encounter was the Old Quarter, the ancient part of Montpellier, with blond stone streets polished to a fine sheen from centuries of footsteps, streets the width of an armspan, hidden inner courtyards accessed via five foot high stable doors, unexpected shops of luxury and style, speaking of a thousand years of trading.  A narrow, narrow footpath opens up - suddenly, inexplicably - to a large sunlit square lined by plane trees, dominated by a magnificent church upon whose steps young people cluster, laughing, reading, smoking; a Salon de Thé
cosies up to an art gallery and a violin maker's workshop with the craftsman inside the tiny premesis, actually working on a violin. 

To bring us back to the twenty-first century, a Range Rover forces its way through these medieval streets, pushing indignant pedestrians out of its path, wing mirrors flattened to its sides. But this vehicle is allowed here, the driver lives in the Old Quarter and is going home, probably to an apartment in a building dating from before Vespucci discovered the land now called the Americas, and one that will surely feature a pale wood parquet floor, heavy wooden shutters, a wood burning marble fireplace, crystal chandeliers, and, more than likely, an open-plan kitchen, air conditioning and wi fi internet.  I'd like to be him, I'd like to live here.