Tour of the Historical Center in English

On Saturdays at 3:30pm, there is a tour of the historical center in English. It starts from the Tourist Information office on the Place de la Comedie. You need to buy a ticket from the caisse at the office and tickets are 6,50 euros.

The tour starts out with a talk about the foundation of Montpellier. Unlike many of the other towns around which were founded and built on a Roman style, Montpellier was founded in the 12th or 13th Century and so it is on a medieval model with narrow winding streets with no balconies. It has many squares which are at the intersections of the steets. In many cases, these were churches that were destroyed in the various conflicts in which religion was involved. So the churches were destroyed leaving space for the more useful outdoor cafes.

We learned that the Place de la Comedie which is the huge square by the Comedie Opera House is one of the few Parisian style squares with Parisian architecture. It was once a huge roundabout and the fountain of the Three Graces right by the McDonalds was the center of the roundabout. Now that the city center is pedestrian and tram, there is no need for the roundabout. All in all, the population seems to like the square as it is now judging by the huge throngs of people that gather there. There was a demonstration for Palestinian rights there on the day we had our tour. A demonstration on the liberation of Tibet a few days earlier. It's a nice square because there is always a lot going on.

Anyway, we learned about the little brass markers embedded in the street. They mark the part in Montpellier of the St. Jacques Pilgrim Path on the Santiago de Compostella pilgrimage. Elena wants to do this--not for any religious reason, but she likes the idea of walking.

We entered a number of private homes of former residents of Montpellier. Well they aren't really private homes anymore. Many were very large. We went to the treasurer of Montpellier from hundreds of years of ago in the 1400's--Jacques Coeur. He was sort of the first guy to put Montpellier on the map.

We looked at the architectural styles and saw buildings with various styles on the same building as the owners made parts of the building more modern or remodeled or whatever it is they did to make the hodge-podge of styles.

Around rue Foch, we entered a recently discovered mikve from the 1300's. This is a bath used in Jewish purification rituals. We went down into a basement and stood in the stone changing room. We could see the bath through a stone window. The water was crystal clear. It was hard to tell that there was water.

Finally we ended by climbing to the top of the Arc de Triomf by the Peyrou. That was Elena's favorite art because her favorite direction is up.

The whole tour was about 2.5 hours. We saw the location of an archeological museum where we can see more and our tickets will get us in for free. We also found the location of a couple of small free museums right by the Shakespeare Pub which are worth taking a peek at.