Montpellier in April

There are lots of great day trips in the area. Nimes, Sete, Carcassonne, the Pont du Gard etc are all easily reached by local train. WE also booked a get your guide van tour of small villages and the Mourez rock formation as a day trip which was excellent. If your granddaughter is studying there, she will surely have her favorite restaurants and hang outs. Tickets for the trams are sold on every platform and the system is very easy to use.

We stayed at an apartment hotel in Antigone and liked the area and the convenience of the tram as well as a market nearby.

We stayed there in April last year at Hôtel du Palais and enjoyed the hotel and location very much. We were only there for 4 nights and did a day trip to Sete plus rented a car for one day to go to Pont du Gard, Uzes and Nime. We did a walking tour through the TI that was very interesting as well. We really liked Montpellier.

Loved Montpellier. We stayed at the Best Western by the train station. Loved the plaza area, many cute shops. Enjoyed just walked around in that area and taking photos. Walked to the Roman aqueduct. Took a wine tour which was wonderful. The only thing I regret is we didn't bike from Montpellier down to the Mediterranean Sea as a couple of women in our wine tour did. We would have liked to have taken a couple of day tours while we were there but didn't have time.

Thanks so much to all who replied so far! Great info. I’ve been to Paris 3 times, and Cote d’azure (?sp?) once (middle of the night robbery in Cassis! Great travel story…..) but have little experience elsewhere. I’m sure Sonia will have many tips and treats once we get there. Thank you again!

Our daughter is now living in Montpellier and we just returned from a visit - loved it! We stayed at the Hotel des Arceaux, 3-35 Bd des Arceaux, 34000 Montpellier, a small quaint (very French) hotel - we were in room 302 (which is actually on the ground floor) - and had a small balcony (lovely for breakfast), great bed and nice bathroom. The weekly market (Tuesday and Saturday) is held on the street outside, under bthe arches, and is simply wonderful; on Sunday, there is an 'antique' market (where everyone seems to clean out their attic).

Lovely dinner - Le Petit Jardin, very nice ambience (large patioin in the garden) and wonderful food, on a small street near the Arc.

Musee Fabre, the art museum, is wonderful. We also visited the Château de Flaugergues, just outside the city (we borrowed our daughters car but a taxi woulkd be easy). It's a lovely wine estate, built as a “folly” for 17th and 18th-century aristocracy, with a lovely garden, wine tasting, and tour of the house (In English and/.or French. When we arrived, lunch was being served in thge courtyard (we didnt know about this) - if interested, I;'m surte you need reservations because the tables were all full of French couples enjoying their meal.

40 mins NW. of Mon tpellier is St-Guilhem-le-Désert., a tiny beautiful village well worth a day trip. Medieval houses on cobble-stoned lanes amidst the gorges, an abbey on the side of a hill, and restaurants for lunch.

For us, 3/4 days in Montpellier was enough to see the city and environs and so we toook her car and did a circle -

Uzes (where we did a cooking class at Le Pistou), Avignon (Palace of the Popes), St Remy (St Paul Sanitarium/Van Gogh, Glanum, Château Romanin, with a beautiful tasting room), Lacoste (fabulous contemporary art and restaurants), Aix and back to Montpellier (which is only 2 hours or so from Aix).

Quirky? Steam Train of the Cevennes: through the mountain ranges (beats driving) - you can get on in Anduze or St Jean de Gard.

Enjoy!!