Deep History, College and Culture in Montpellier

After our coffee in Sete, we continued on Wednesday to Montpellier for a quick walk through the historic center.  Montpellier is the capital of the Languedoc Roussillon region of Southern France, and the third largest city on the southern coast.  It has three major universities, and is steeped in history dating back to 985 AD.  The first thing I saw when we came up the stairs from the parking structure were these pillars that looked to me like Mermen, which naturally took my breath away.

Here's a closer look.

And a closer one yet.  The detail in his face is just great.

You're probably figuring out by now from my posts that this kind of building detail just makes my day.  Especially because they could be Mermen.  I haven't had much luck finding Mermaids in France, so these were really a bonus.  And on that same building, this was pretty interesting as well.

Dragging myself reluctantly away from the Mermen, we continued down the street, where I saw more beautiful details.  All of the architectural details in this part of town made me think of Paris.  Sigh.

And again there were plenty of those wrought iron railings on the buildings that are so prevalent in this area.

Of course there was no shortage of narrow streets,

and everything was so clean, thanks I'm sure in part to this adorable cleaning crew that was all dressed in green.

I noticed yet another one of those mural stickers that we've been seeing all around the South of France,

and although the church was closed at the time we visited, it of course had some beautiful details on the exterior.

There was a cute little tram running through the center of town,

and a soccer scoreboard outside of an Irish pub.  The finals were currently going on in Marseille.

All in all, we only had a couple of hours in Montpellier, so the things that most struck me during our very short visit were the building ornamentation, the cleanliness of the historical center, and the fashionable feel that you got there.  With more time, I'm sure there is plenty to explore, and I would love to visit this town again.

Thanks for following!

Love,
Linda