3 "Walk On" This Week

Susan, Wendy's daughter, arrived yesterday for a week with us here in Montpellier.  Our day was spent food shopping and a bit of tidying up before heading to the airport to pick her up.  And then we were surprised to find out the Navette bus from the tram stop to the airport is free all day - couldn't quite figure out why but we weren't going to quibble.  The bus driver said Herault (the region) has too much money and wanted to get rid of some!  But being France - we still needed to have a ticket which had a zero on it).

We started our time together with a great light supper of baguette, different cheeses, French melon, pate and a nice refreshing green salad. And a little rosé wine.  Nummy!  Early to bed for our only slightly jet lagged guest.  

Today we headed out to walk to Arceaux to show Susan some of Montpellier.  We walked under the Aquaduct and up to the Peyrou, the esplanade leading to the old town.  And there we found the Sunday brocante, a market that seemed to be nearly all antiques, being sold by antique dealers if the trucks parked behind the stalls were any indication.  

Lots of gorgeous furniture, lots of paintings, lots of old linens, (if you ever wondered what happened to the embroidered napkins and tray cloths that your grandmother embroidered, they are here - for sale).  Lots and lots of silver, and a lot of silver cutlery.  I even found a set that was engraved with USNavy.  Makes you wonder how that came about!  Fun to make up a story to go with it.  The stuff was not junk, and it was not cheap.  There were some beautiful old trunks.  Lucky I have to fly home, that's all I can say!!  I did buy one thing, something I have looked for for a long time - an old toy sewing machine. I had one when I was little; I think it was a Singer but not sure.  Why did I not keep it?  But I found an older one and quite grubby, needs a lot of cleaning and polishing but I love it already.  30€, no idea if that is a good deal or not but Wendy talked him down from 35€.  You can't tell with this picture but it's the size of my outstretched hand.

After we left the market we wandered down into the old town and found a place for a café creme and to sit watching the Sunday strollers and shoppers go by.  Not many stores are open on Sunday but that doesn't seem to stop folks coming downtown to wander around.  

After coffee we hit a couple of fun stores, then the tourist info again before going back over to St. Roch  church and actually found it open - about our 4th attempt.  Great excitement, we got to go inside and check it out.  After that we went over to a restaurant where we'd had lunch when we first got here and had a very nice lunch for Susan's first meal out in Montpellier.  

Wendy had a dish with scallops and wild rice with salad on the side.  She said it was amazing.  Susan had a smoked salmon lasagne and she said the same thing, while I had the same salad as last week.  So good.

Susan's smoked salmon lasagne.  

Chèvre chaud salad.  Sooooooo goooood!!!! 

 After lunch -which was fashionably late at 3pm, we wandered back through town to a tram stop and home.  

Another successful day in Montpellier!