Day 30 ~ Montpellie-Yay

Our time in Lyon was too short, and we would have loved more time. Stef’s cold had slowed us down, and we left many things unseen. But it was time to head on to Spain – but on our way there, we had decided to make a train change in Montpellier, France into an even longer train change, lock up our luggage, and take some time to see a city in the south of France. Montpellier is maybe not the sexiest choice, since its beaches were too far for us to reach comfortably on our half-day, but Daniel had been here in the late 90s, and the fact is this is where the train is. So – Montpellier!

We thought we left ample time to get to the train station in Lyon; it ended up really being barely enough time. We got on our first-ever private train, Ouigo, which was shockingly large. Travels to Montpellier went smoothly, and we pulled in at 9:45. I wouldn’t say we had a whole plan for this day, just to kind of wander around within a comfortable radius of the train station.

We were immediately struck by the appealing character of the buildings. The buildings are all – really, all – made of a sandstone, and everywhere is this lovely shade of sandy yellow. In this old center of town, there were wrought iron balconies everywhere, and they are such a joy to look at. And palm trees!

We came upon this gorgeous Place de la Comedie, a theater plaza:

We went down to la Tour de la Babote, a 12th-century tower that was once part of Montpellier’s fortifications and housed an observatory.

We headed back up to a big park area to see what was there. Turns out it was market day. There were stalls of clothes and produce, and up the other side, there was a whole massive row of booksellers – there must have been 15 of them; they went forever.

Sure, we were wandering, but Stef did have an agenda: A cat cafe. Friends, we’ve been to several cat cafes, and this was our third on this trip. This was hands-down by-a-mile the best cat cafe we have ever been in, or ever will be in. It had fluffy, gorgeous cats that were funny and gregarious. And it was done up in the most adorable Victorian English tea house style; it was completely adorable.

Sadly, Stef didn’t get a lot of pictures of Daniel with these beautiful cats. Next time.

Unable to handle any more cuteness, we set out to see what else Montpellier had for us. We headed to this incredible church, Saint Pierre:

This church was unlike any we had seen, with its massive, ponderous structure, and we desperately wanted to see the inside of it. Just look at the titanic front entryway! Alas, it was actually in use for the whole day, and closed to visitors. We heard a gorgeous choir from inside, and were left to only imagine what that experience would be like.

Resourceful as we are, though, we had seen the spires of another cathedral, and headed off to check that out. That one was really closed though – construction for years to come. So no churches for us today. 🙁

Shut out of the spiritual realm, we explored some civic pride. There was the obligatory Arc du Triomphe:

And on the other side, a tree-lined promenade with many benches, culminating in this edifice, the beautiful top of a water cistern.

And behind that, this magnificent 18th century aqueduct!

It was getting time to head back for our train, so we stopped for a quick and forgettable lunch of kebab and falafel, and away we went – to Spain!

The countryside of southern France was surprisingly down at heel, with marginally developed land and a few trailer parks whose squalor rivaled anything we’d seen in the U.S. As we crossed into Spain, the trees got taller, the land got greener, and the hills rolled and heaved. And – the clouds started putting on quite a show. It was a beautiful ride through northeastern Spain.

The long haul days of train travel have been a real crapshoot, but today’s trains executed flawlessly, and we were in Barcelona as scheduled. Despite online advice not to do this, we took the metro from the train station to the hotel. The metro was easy to use, fast, and would have been wonderful…but it was insanely crowded, absolutely packed with people, and maneuvering our bags and luggage was difficult, and inconvenient for everyone around us. We’ve never seen subways this crowded.

But we made it. We emerged from the crowded subway into…more crowds. Outrageous crowds! In the tiny half a block from the metro to the hotel, we saw wild amounts of people, more people than we’d ever seen in one street, outside of India. We’d known we were arriving in the middle of the massive Mercè festival, and what we didn’t know is that our hotel is situated about a block from where nearly all the main action was staged. It was cool to see, tough to navigate luggage through.

Our hotel room is small and spare, but the hotel has been really great – helpful staff, things we needed like laundry service, and the location cannot be beat (more on that later).

And with that, our Barcelona adventure begins!