Photo set here.
Holiday summary shortly! But first: if you see me on the news very soon it will be because I have blown up the Royal Bank of Scotland. My brand new bank card, which I was very much enjoying using for the purposes of obtaining legal tender, mysteriously stopped working this morning. When I rang the bank, they informed me that the card had been cancelled. They don’t know why. Of course they don’t know why. Why would they know why? Only God knows why. That should be the official slogan of the Royal Bank of Scotland. “RBS: God fucking knows.” Another card has now been ordered for me, which I expect to receive shortly before my retirement. Seriously now – is someone playing a practical joke on me? ENOUGH ALREADY.
Bah. On the upside, the card worked fine for the duration of my trip to Montpellier, which was mostly brilliant. The next time I visit, however, I expect the experience will be vastly improved by a few rules of thumb I’ve picked up:
1. Never attempt to joke with a French barman.
2. Never look your food in the face.
3. When booking cheapo hotels in strange cities, always check the location first.
The British Airways experience was divine, although I’m not quite sure I understand the advantage of checking in online – we arrived at the airport with our pre-printed boarding passes, stood in a queue, showed our passports, were given a boarding sticker, checked our luggage, and then proceeded to security. To the uneducated eye this would appear to be exactly the same process as regular check-in, but I’m not going to argue with a company that gives me a reasonable amount of legroom and free gin and tonics. NO COMPLAINTS HERE.
We spent Saturday afternoon in Montpellier, where the sky and the water were so blue it seemed excessive. Leave some blue for the rest of the world, Montpellier! Quit hogging all the blue! There were palm trees and spectacular architectural monuments and charming people and winding cobblestone streets and really good food. In short, there really wasn’t much to complain about. So I’ll just move on to the next leg of the trip then, shall I? Right.
We stayed for two nights in Marseillan, right outside Montpellier. The first night, we stopped in at the Spar (the European equivalent of a 7 Eleven) for a bottle of wine to have with dinner. I was a bit sceptical about the quality of wine to be found in a convenience store, but we walked past the racks of crisps and magazines and came upon this. France does not fuck around when it comes to wine.
Later we ingratiated ourselves at the local pub. I was the official translator, as nobody but NOBODY in Marseillan speaks English. We got on just fine, though I seem to recall that the conversation got a bit disjointed towards the end of the evening. I also seem to recall SiC buying a big fuck off bottle of champagne and distributing it to everyone. These two things might possibly be related.
On Sunday we took a day trip to Sète, where every year the locals get together and perform jousting contests on small boats. I was at a loss to understand exactly why someone would do this. A woman at a little tourist shop offered this explanation, whilst rolling her eyes: “Pfft! Men.” Ah! Of course.
From Sète, we took a train to Agde. Agde has a river and a castle. And a Tex-Mex restaurant, which has chili on the menu, but which does not actually offer chili, because the new chef doesn’t know how to make chili. I wouldn’t recommend the burgers either.
Monday we packed up and went to Arles, which sounded really good in a travel article we’d found in the newspaper the day before: home of Van Gogh, pre-and post-ear! and lots of old Roman stuff! We found a cheap hotel online and booked a room, foolishly, FOOLISHLY without checking to see where it was in relation to the train station. We were seasoned travellers, after all! We could certainly get it together to find a taxi!
We’d forgotten to take into account that it was May Day, and also that the French are very big fans of doing nothing at all at every conceivable opportunity. There didn’t seem to be any vehicles going anywhere – we spotted one taxi, but he studiously ignored our spastic flailing; and after standing for twenty minutes at a taxi rank with no sign of another, we opted to walk to the hotel. SiC hauled our enormous duffel bag on his back for a good couple of kilometres in the sticky heat, with me periodically offering to help and then complaining after two minutes that my arms hurt. (Luckily he was too tired to strangle me.) The hotel turned out to be at a dismal service station on the motorway. After a reviving session of lying motionless and watching the sweat evaporate off our bodies, we managed to telephone a taxi and get back into town.
We dutifully exclaimed over the breathtaking Roman coliseum (which had been used the day before to host a cattle exhibition) and were charmed by the general charmingness of the place. Then we got hungry. “Good thing we’re in France!” we thought. “Whatever else, we can rely on getting a fucking good meal.” We picked a restaurant that looked busy, trying to avoid looking at the spectacularly hideous artwork on the walls. My meal was a bit slimy and bland. SiC ordered a bouillabaisse…and got this. It frightened me. “Your food is looking at me,” I said. SiC gamely poked at it for about half an hour, trying to avoid eye contact with the prehistoric predator lurking in its depths, before giving up and filling up on wine instead.
“I can’t tell if this food is really fancy and gourmet or just fucking disgusting,” I said.
“Me neither. I’m going with disgusting.”
We were tired after our motorway death march and slightly nauseated by the authentic Provencal cuisine, so we decided to play it safe and head for the local Irish pub. This is becoming a tradition with us.
SiC was delighted to find Bombay Sapphire gin on offer. “Vive la France!” he cheered to the barman.
“Why?” said the barman.
“Because of the gin and tonics! And, you know, liberté, fraternité, egalité, and all that.”
The barman looked at us with an expression that clearly read, “I would hold you in contempt if it was remotely worth my time to even acknowledge your pathetic existence.”
He poured a mean G&T, though.
In short order we’d made the acquaintance of an Irish tourist, who heard us speaking English, asked if he could join us, and then entertained us all evening. God bless the Irish! The bar closed at eleven, and after wandering around for half an hour in a futile quest for more drinks, we went back to the hotel.
The gate was shut. “What the fuck?” I said. “Why’s it shut? It’s a fucking HOTEL!” We pressed the buzzer and got no response. SiC was getting ready to scale the fence when someone finally asked what we wanted and grudgingly let us in.
We continued our other tradition of annoying hotel staff by demanding drinks after hours. The receptionist was having none of it. “Tell him it’s my birthday!” said SiC. We got that look of contempt again (boy the French are good at that) and were forced to concede defeat. Probably for the best.
The next day we did a bit more wandering about and oohing and aahing, which seems to be the only thing to do in Arles. We got hungry about midday, but were again stymied by the French fondness for inactivity. Just about everything was closed for the afternoon. Restaurants that were open were no longer serving food. People looked at us strangely when we asked if we could see a menu. In desperation, after trying about ten restaurants, we went to McDonalds.
“Fuck this,” said SiC. “Let’s go back to Montpellier.”
Montpellier was just as we’d left it – brilliant. We found an entertainingly shabby hotel across the street from the train station (“You can tell it’s classy because there’s carpet on the walls!”). After building a tower in our room out of small items of furniture (as one does), we went out and had dinner on a terrace in a cobbled square next to a mediaeval cathedral, then were bought drinks by a (zut alors!) friendly barman in an idiosyncratic little reggae bar. The whole night was perfect as a postcard. A postcard soaked in gin!
And then we had to go home. For the first time in my life, I was depressed at the thought of coming to London. I say this about very few things in life, so pay close attention: Montpellier totally doesn’t suck. Tell all your friends.