"Down by the riverside"... Down by the lakeside actually, with lots of fish!

Following our relatively unsuccessful trip to the beach, we decided that perhaps we needed to find a new sunbathing and paddling spot.  Liza had heard about a lake where both of these things were possible from a friend, so on a Thursday afternoon, Liza, Jenny and I embarked on a trip to find it.  Worryingly, Liza originally told us that it was at the very end of tram line two, but by Thursday had discovered that it was actually two stops before the end of the line at Via Domitia.  Nonetheless, Jenny and I didn't question Liza's mystery tour, and blindly followed her off of the tram at Via Domitia.  Following the instructions that Liza had received via text, we knew that we needed to cross a bridge from the tram stop, but after that we were a bit lost.  The instructions merely said that at the other side of the bridge, we needed to ask for directions!


The bridge was pretty easy to locate since it was the only one we could see and it was at the end of the tram station platform, directly in front of our faces.  The bridge brought us to a car park for a huge sports centre, that was full of cars but distinctly lacking in people to ask for directions.  Helpful.  We spotted a friendly looking lady not so far away, which sparked a thirty second debate that went a little like this;

"Shall we ask her?" "I don't know, we could ask her?" "But she might not know where the lake is!  She might just think we're strange English girls wandering around looking for a non-existent lake!"

Finally, Liza bit the bullet, marched over, and asked the friendly looking lady where the lake was.  It turned out that the lake definitely did exist, and she knew exactly where it was.  She explained that it was about a fifteen minute walk away and would be quite simple to find.  The friendly looking lady then became even more helpful than we had ever anticipated and offered us a lift!  Apparently she was heading that way anyway, and had three spare spaces in the car.  With a chorus of "merci beaucoup" and "vous êtes très gentille" we graciously accepted her offer and clambered into the little white three door car.  She explained that it was her husband's car and she didn't normally drive it which is why her driving might not be entirely up to scratch.  This filled me with the utmost confidence, given that the French aren't exactly known for their road safety, but I couldn't exactly complain - she had just offered us a free lift.  All in all, this mission to sunbathe was proving a lot more successful than our last trip to the beach.


A short, three minute journey and we arrived at the lake in one piece.  She pointed out where we would have been able to go into the park if we were on foot, and thus, where it would be possible to leave from.  As we were in a car, however, she dropped us off at a slightly more official, gravelled entrance to the park, with instructions that we needed to go "upstairs" to get to the lake.  She had attempted a little bit of English for our benefit which was sweet, and we could only assume that by "upstairs" she meant "up hill".  So, we headed off up the reasonably small hill that lay ahead of us, and sure enough, at the top we were greeted by a beautiful view that looked out across the lake and the park surrounding it.

Once we reached the water's edge, we decided to walk round around the lake to reach the grassy area on the other side.  We could just make out a few people sun bathing over there, and decided that they must have the right idea; the rest of the lake seemed to be edged with gravel which wouldn't exactly make for a comfortable sunbathing spot.  It probably took about less than ten minutes to walk to the other side of the lake, and although it wasn't exactly an unpleasant walk, I think we all breathed a joint sigh of relief as we settled ourselves onto our towels, bikinis on, facing the sun.


Liza had been told by her friend that it was absolutely fine to swim in the lake, and as a few of the other French sun seekers there seemed to be having no problems with diving in, we thought we would follow suit. Well, when I say swim, I of course mean paddle.  Jenny and Liza were aiming to swim, but swimming really isn't my thing.  I paddle, and that is all.  However, Liza and Jenny soon came round to the idea of paddling upon discovering that the lake is actually filled with fish!  Jenny had a definite aversion to the fish but Liza took a shining to them.  I remained fairly neutral in my feelings towards the fish; they were quite small, slim little things, but they did have a habit of getting a little close for comfort if you stood still for too long.  Liza was delighted by this and very quickly settled herself in the water, before proclaiming herself to be 'Liza, friend of the fishes' as they all started gathering around her.


Once Liza had satisfied her fish loving tendencies, and Jenny and I agreed that we were quite done with paddling, we dried off in the sun before gathering our things and heading back to the tram stop.  We guessed at which way we would need to walk to join the road, and decided to continue walking around the lake and then veer off into the park, rather than walking back the way we came.  This allowed us to stumble across a waterfall on our way out, and also discover that even when the weather doesn't allow for sunbathing, it really would be worth coming back simply to walk around the park.

Sure enough, the walk really did only take about fifteen minutes back to the tram, and from there it was only half a dozen stops back to my stop, Charles De Gaulle.  I must admit, the novelty of living in a city has fast worn off for me (I can handle small towns, like Egham, but you give me a population of more than about 20,000 and I start to get itchy feet), and it was comforting to discover that there's a little green patch of tranquillity a stone's throw away from all the concrete, for those days when the cars and quarter of a million people all start to get a bit much for this country bumpkin.

"Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn"... Well, Best Hôtel and Etap.

The first week that I spent here in Montpellier wasn't exactly the stuff of dreams.  With nowhere to live, I stayed at the aforementioned Centre Millénaire Hôtel Etap from Tuesday night through until Saturday morning.  I moved to the rather ironically named Best Hôtel, also in the Millénaire area, on Saturday and stayed there until I finally moved into an apartment on Monday morning.


The Etap hotel, for my first 'home' in Montpellier, really wasn't too bad.  Freshly decorated, with a modest breakfast buffet and access to a microwave, things could have been worse.  I even managed to make friends with the cleaning lady after our run-in on my third morning there: I wanted to pay to stay for an extra night; she wanted me to leave so that she could clean my room.  After we finally straightened out the slight miscommunication, I was able to go downstairs and pay for another night. Having done so, she was quite happy to leave me to my own devices with my fresh towels and empty bin.  In fact, by my final morning there she was so accustomed to the slightly strange English girl who seemed to have taken up residence in room 226 that she left cleaning my room until last, and was most apologetic when she had to ask me to vacate at half past eleven.

Having lived off of nothing but pesto pasta from home (2 days), microwave meals (2 days), and eating anything that vaguely resembles dinner but can be eaten cold (1 day) I'd like to think I have some words of wisdom to share on Vegetarian hotel dining:

1. Pesto pasta keeps well for up to 3 days in a cool bag!
2. Goats cheese and spinach lasagne may sound yummy.  It is not.
3. Microwave tortellini is fairly horrid too.  On the other hand, microwave pizza is surprisingly good, if a little soggy.
4. Mozzarella and tomato pastries are yummy cold, even when the instructions say they should be eaten warm. Cous cous with extra vegetables is a good option when your body is screaming at you for some trace of vitamin C.

Best Hôtel was a little less impressive.  It was a little shabbier round the edges, with a distinct lack of lift (the look on the receptionist's face when he realised he had to carry my suitcase up the stairs more than made up for that though), and a faint smell of stale smoke meant it didn't quite live up to the Etap standards.  On the plus side, the bed was slightly more comfortable - less like the solid stone mattress of the Etap, and a little more like one made of pebbles... Still fairly solid, but with a little more give in it.  Moving between the two hotels was a most hellish walk, with all of my luggage, plus 5 litres of water that I thought I'd be really clever and buy cheaply from the supermarket the day before.  Buying the water was in fact very sensible, as bottled water from high street shops costs €2 for just your standard 500ml.  However, buying it the day before I moved hotels was less intelligent.

Both hotels were about a 10 minute walk away from the Millénaire tram stop on ligne 1.  There are two tram lines that create a kind of 'X' shape across the city, rather inspirationally named 'ligne 1' et 'ligne 2'.  They make travelling across the city simple, cheap and fairly quick.  Millénaire is on the east side of the city, and it only took about 10/12 minutes on the tram to get to the centre.  I was also a mere 5 minute tram ride from the huge shopping centre, Odysseum, that houses a 'Casino Géant'.  No, I haven't taken up gambling - it's the name for one of the French supermarkets.  As it happens, I also became the proud owner of a €1 Casino Géant re-usable shopping bag when I went off to purchase my microwaveable goods... I had completely forgotten that for the most part the French don't give out carrier bags in supermarkets, at all, ever.  Helpful.

Needless to say, I was pretty relieved when I finally arrived at my apartment on Monday morning (more on that later).  Nonetheless, I will probably spend the next few months looking at Millénaire with a certain sense of fondness when I pass the tram stop on my travels.