Montpellier 14-15 Avril 2007.

You may have heard of Montpellier: smallish, but not by French standards, near the water, snobby reputation, sort of place you'd spend 3 hours in on a coach tour. But what seems simply charming to you is one of the coolest spots on the southern French student map. A quarter of the sizeable population goes to the fac, and lives walking distance from the reatively new, not too expensive city centre. They've got student prices for eveything, there's a million cafes and bars, the number of tourists makes finding summer work easy, and the beach is only 10 mintues away. We went with Julie to stay in her old apartment, soon to be sold, for her final farewell and our own intimate initiation.

We started well, got lost. Found ourselves outside Avignon before we realised and thought we might as well try a short cut through St Rémy. We wanted to pull over to take a picture of all the colza fields in front of the Alpilles hills, so we thought we might as well take a photo of Julie's parents vineyard. And since we were just a km away, why not drop in to say hi to her family? They agreed, and said since we were there already why not stay for lunch, and try some wine...

We didn't end up having lunch, but departed restocked and arrived in Montpellier with enough time for a few coffees with Mathieu, one of Julie's old house mates and some sightseeing.

Montpellier is relativeley new because it was burned down pretty recently in the wars of religion, 15th-16th century. So the newish buildings looks like they're hiding laboratories and brass globes of the New World underneath their enormous domes.

The music scene is full of new ideas as well as the architecture, like this soirée exclusively for bands who'd met on Myspace.

We had dinner and poker chez Mathieu with other friends, then tried out a famous nightclub, before drifting home. The next day we sight-saw the new Greek-style development in Montpellier, and put the great fountains to good uses.

Before we vacated the apartment, which is to be sold in May, we had a last look around for lost loot. In the top of a tall cupboard we found a couple of cushions, some blankets, tennis rackets from circa 1930, and a pile of old paintings. The old owner had been an artist, and had sketched lots of architectural details, and people in styles ranging form picasso to impressionism. They say he died in the apartment, but his paintings had been left behind.

Finally we popped off to a Slowfood food exhibition before we left to see what trendy French food looks like. It looks good, if you doubted it, especially after their food artist has been put on the job.

And we haven't eaten any fast food once since we got back! (well, maybe once...)