Written By: Paul
We’ve been in Montpellier for four months now. It’s flown by, and yet it feels like a lifetime ago Angela and I were cursing the snow and ice in Canada (an annual tradition undertaken by all Canadians except cross-country skiers and snowplow drivers). Today, a Thursday in late April, it’s 23 degrees and sunny, a perfect day in a beautiful city and the lustre of southern France continues to grow on us.
In our previous Expat Life post I talked about our experience beginning our new lives in Montpellier while also tackling all the excursions, trials, and tribulations that came to pass in January and February. This post will cover March and April, two months that could not have differed more from each other, but both provided challenges, opportunities, and more sandwiches with some version of ham than you can shake a stick at. April also provided me with my first French haircut, which worked out well considering the woman cutting my hair didn’t speak a work of English – so I’m just glad that with my extraordinarily weak French I didn’t inadvertently ask her to dye it all pink.
The City
Montpellier is not a perfect city – it’s close to the Mediterranean but isn’t right on the sea like Nice or Marseille; it has a homeless problem (as most – if not all – European cities do); and the weather is more inconsistent than I had hoped (great January and February, rainy March, mixed April).
Having said that, though, the more time we spend here the more we love it. Montpellier has a laid-back vibe that I have come to appreciate. Public transportation is fantastic, and walking gets you across most of the city. The architecture is unique – from the old-world feel of the écusson (old city centre) to the classical Roman structures of our neighbourhood in Antigone, there’s always something interesting to look at. Montpellier is also a very active city – heaps of sports, recreation, special events, and support for the arts. It’s a great fit for us.
We also love all of the little side streets and alleyways where you can shop and find some very cool little restaurants. The écusson is brimming with charm and it seems to go on forever – once you explore down one side street you then find another, and then another. You then realize you’re hopelessly lost in a maze of cobblestones and will just have to give up and drown your sorrows in a jug of cheap but delicious local French wine (if you’re into that kind of thing).
There are two other huge pluses to Montpellier from our perspective – location (central to everything in the south, three hours to both Paris and Barcelona by train), and the markets. This is a city chock full of markets, from produce and flower markets to antique brocantes and flea markets, this is a place where people like to shop outside.
One other thing that has stood out to us over the last two months is how green the city can be – with the arrival of spring the town squares and parks come alive with trees, birds, flowers, and people eating lunch on blankets. It’s a nice place to be at this time of year.
Accomplishments
March and April required no shortage of tasks to be completed. As expats in France I am guessing this will never end, but thankfully we’re knocking things down and haven’t run into any major issues. Highlights include:
- Angela received her finalized carte de séjour! This means she’s legally allowed to live and work here for the year, at which point she’ll need to renew it. I’m a citizen of the Netherlands (I have dual nationality with Canada and the Netherlands), so as an EU citizen I don’t need a carte de séjour or any other visa or special paperwork to be here.
- We both registered businesses and received our French social security numbers, so now we’re just waiting to hear from CPAM about healthcare. We’re in the system, though, so it won’t be long!
- We had our first guest! A lifelong friend of ours from Toronto (and Nova Scotia before that) joined us in Montpellier for three weeks! When we toured around Montpellier and described it as “our city” I definitely felt more than a little bit of pride, and it also solidified in my mind that this is the place for us. Seeing it through her eyes confirmed that our choice of location here in Southern France was the right one.
Travel
March was relatively quiet on the travel front, although we did do one mini-excursion at the start of the month to Palavas-les-flots, a small beach-side community on the Mediterranean. Only 11kms from our house, we decided to walk it. There’s a fantastic trail that runs along the River Lez, which we can see from our apartment, so we thought it would be a good hike. Despite a rainy, cool March we had one epically amazing weekend early in the month (16 degrees and nothing but sun) so we decided to take advantage of it.
Another March destination was Sète, an easy 20 minute train ride from Montpellier. Sète is described by many as the “Venice of Languedoc”. If I had a euro for every place that calls themselves the “Venice of” something, I’d be a fairly wealthy man – but since no one is giving me free euros for a fairly random and ridiculous reason, my station in life will stay as is for a while longer. Having said that, Sète is impressive, and definitely deserves a “Venice of” title – it really is spectacular and a very enjoyable day trip. We wrote about it in this post.
Unlike March, April was an extremely busy travel month. Our friend, Shailla, came to visit from Toronto so we really wanted to share the experience of exploring southern France and Spain with her. She brought us Kraft peanut butter from Canada in her suitcase, so we figured it was the least we could do.
After showing Shailla around Montpellier we jumped on a train and zipped east along the coast for Nice and Monte-Carlo. We spent five days exploring the French Riviera, including an excursion to Èze, high above the Mediterranean. We also took in the Monte-Carlo Masters ATP event (pro tennis), which marked the first leg in something we’re calling “Paul and Angela’s and Occasionally Shailla’s European Clay Court Adventure”, beginning in Monaco and ending next month at Roland Garros (French Open) in Paris. Nice and the surrounding areas were spectacular and there will certainly be posts to come on the topic.
After returning to Montpellier for a few days we jumped on another train, this one headed west. We chugged across the Spanish border to Barcelona, a city all three of us have always wanted to visit. Barcelona had another ATP tournament on, so we took that in and spent four solid days exploring a city full of delicious food, amazing people, and impossibly picturesque neighbourhoods, beaches, and attractions. We drank Vichy Catalan, ate tapas, and dodged other tourists on La Rambla. It was amazing. Posts definitely to come.
After returning to Montpellier and chilling out for a couple of days we mentioned to Shailla that we had our very own “Venice of” nearby and she was intrigued, so we took another trip to Sète so she could check it out as well. She agreed that it deserves “Venice of” status.
At the end of the month Shailla headed back to Toronto and Angela and I resumed our regular programming here in Montpellier. It was nice sharing our new home with her. One of the things you miss when you move overseas is your friends and family, so her stay was definitely a welcome event and brought an injection of energy to our spring season here in France.
May and June will be very Paris-centric – we have Roland Garros coming in late May and in June we’ll be spending three weeks in the CIty of Light, so our next Expat Life update will be stacked full of Paris-y goodness. Until then… à bientôt!