Travel Blog: 2009-2010: Weekend in the Southeast of France

Last weekend was the only long weekend the students in USAC will have until Christmas break, so three friends (Brittany, Oliver and Josie) and I decided to take advantage of the break to visit a different region of France: the southeast.

On Friday, we left by train to our first city, Montpellier. We originally chose to visit Montpellier because it is relatively close to Pau and because it has a reputation for having an active night life, something none of us regularly participate in Pau. This latter characteristic was rather fortuitous for us the night we arrived because our train ended up being delayed in Toulouse, meaning we did not arrive in Montpellier until almost 8:30. But, after finding a cheap hotel in which to stash our bags, we went out into the city to find some dinner and try to get to the beach. Dinner was easy to find, but after thirty minutes of walking, we gave up on our idea of visiting the beach, and instead went in the opposite direction, towards the center of town, to find somewhere to get some local wine. Once back in Montpellier proper, we sat down at a cafe accross the square from the city's theater, which at night is illuminated with a projection of various Renaissance, Baroque and Classical paintings with the upcoming events to be held at the theater superimposed over the images. The next morning, we walked around Montpellier for a couple of hours and then caught our next train to Avignon.

Once in Avignon, we set out again in search of a new place to spend the night. We chose youth hostel that was accross the Rhone from the city because we expected it to be cheap. It was relatively cheap and the breakfast the following morning was decent, but those are really the only nice things I can say about our room that night. But once again, we set out to walking and had a wonderful day in the Medieval city of Avignon. The old part of the city, the area we visited, is still surrounded by its original curtain wall, and in the western quarter of the city stands le Palais de Papes, the residence of the Popes for nearly two hundred years. The admission into the palace was more than four college students were willing to pay, but after a lunch of bananas and Nutella on baguettes (eaten on the steps of Avignon`s historical synagogue), we visited the expansive gardens and one of the smaller chapels at the palace. By 8:00 that night, were again exhausted and hungry. Unfortunately, Avignon is a very expensive city, but we had another delicious meal, this time of Lebanese kebabs and a very nice bottle of red wine which we drank out of plastic water bottles. It already being late by the time we were done eating, we curled up under our coats on the hostel beds to go to sleep, since the price of the hostel did not include sheets, towels or any kind of soap.

We walked back into Avignon Sunday morning and had a leisurely time drinking coffee, taking pictures of the gardens and admiring the soldiers from the French Foreign Legion who frequently walked by as we waited for our afternoon train to Nîmes. Being that it was Sunday, there was very little activity when we arrived in Nîmes, and we had to walk around the town for almost an hour before we found a hotel that was open. But, since we did not have very much money for lodging, we formulated a plan: Oliver and I would go into the hotel with all of our baggage, reserve a room with two beds for the night, rejoin the girls after dropping off our luggage, and later that night, return to the hotel and pretend that Josie and Brittany were simply two girls we met that night and were bringing back to our room. The first part of the plan went unbelievably well, and we were soon wandering the streets of Nîmes once more. After an hour, however, we were very disappointed with the city: although we were impressed with the Roman coliseum that was there, the rest of the town seemed to be quite rough and populated solely by immigrants. But after consulting a map, we realized that we had spent all of our time thus far in the suburbs of Nîmes. When we actually made into the historical section, we had a wonderful time exploring expansive gardens with Roman ruins and historical streets that were centuries old. We had a delicious and unforgettable dinner that night at a Chinese restaurant we had discovered earlier while searching for a hotel and then nervously walked back to the hotel. Once there, I had Brittany lean on my arm and I walked as boldly as I could at the front desk to ask for the key to our room. The concierge looked perplexed for a few moments, consulting his list of rooms which stated that there were only two people in that room and intermittently looking at the four of us before finally asking if there was a problem with the room. I told him there was not and then watched his face turn red as the comprehension slowly set in. He then passed quickly us the key to our room and muttered an embarrassed good night. Halfway up the stairs we all burst out laughing at what the concierge only thought he understood.

We spent our Monday again walking through the streets of our host city of the day, stepping into occasional shops. Our train was not due to depart until 3:30 in the afternoon so we spent several hours eating sandwiches and drinking coffee in a cafe near the train station. It was a six hour journey back to Pau, but during our stop in Toulouse to change trains, we got more kebabs for dinner. On the train, we had a desert of various combinations Nutella, apples, crackers, peanuts and pretzels; all were delicious. We arrived at the train station in Pau at 10:30 that night, exhausted and looking forward to finally starting our intensive language classes the next day 9:00 am.

Montpellier: