Montpellier, France: I’m in love!

Some places impress you because they’re beautiful. Others because of their history, architecture, food, or landscape. And then there are those places where the connection is harder to explain. You arrive, walk around for a day or two, and something inside you simply says, I like it here.

Montpellier was one of those places for me.

Located in southern France, not far from the Mediterranean, Montpellier is an old city with a very young spirit. Its university tradition stretches back centuries, and the city remains home to tens of thousands of students today. You feel that youthful presence almost immediately. There’s an energy in the streets, a sense of movement and possibility, that keeps the city from ever feeling like a beautiful museum piece.

And beautiful it certainly is. Much of Montpellier’s historic center is pedestrianized, which for Carla and me is always a very good beginning. Narrow medieval streets twist and turn through the old town with seemingly little concern for whether you know where you’re going. Within a few minutes, your carefully considered sense of direction has disappeared and you’re standing at an intersection wondering which of four equally charming streets you should take.

My recommendation is simple: pick one.

Better yet, put the phone away for a while and allow yourself to get a little lost.

Montpellier is perfect for that kind of wandering. You pass cafés tucked into small squares, interesting shops, old stone buildings, and enormous wooden doors that occasionally open just enough to reveal a courtyard or private residence hiding behind them. The streets narrow, curve, and then suddenly open onto something entirely different - a grand boulevard, an elegant building, or a large plaza filled with people.

Eventually, most wanderers seem to find their way to the Place de la Comédie, the great central square and one of the gathering places of the city. It’s home to the impressive Opéra Comédie and the Three Graces fountain, and it feels very much like Montpellier’s living room. People cross through it, meet friends there, sit outside at cafés, and generally do what Europeans seem particularly good at doing: allowing public space to become part of daily life.

I love that about European cities.

A square isn’t simply something attractive to photograph. People actually use it.

Montpellier also has another wonderful quality: nature hasn’t been completely pushed outside the city limits. The Jardin des Plantes, created at the end of the 16th century, is the oldest botanical garden in France. Walk through its gates and the rhythm changes almost immediately. The city is still right there, but for a while you’re surrounded by trees, plants, winding paths, and enough serenity to make you forget that a lively urban center is waiting just beyond the walls.

But as much as I enjoyed the streets, architecture, gardens, and public spaces, what I remember most fondly about Montpellier is the people.

There’s an old stereotype that the French can be rude or impatient with visitors. We’ve heard it plenty of times, but our experience in Montpellier couldn’t have been more different. People were warm, laid-back, helpful, and remarkably tolerant of our less-than-elegant attempts at speaking French.

And believe me, tolerance was occasionally required. Carla and I always try to learn enough of the language wherever we travel to at least greet people, say please and thank you, and make a little effort. My French was never going to cause anyone to mistake me for a local, but people seemed genuinely appreciative that we tried. Quite often, a simple bonjour and a smile were enough to begin a pleasant interaction.

Those small exchanges matter to me.

The longer we travel, the more I realize that my strongest memories of a place aren’t always attached to monuments. Often they’re attached to people - a shopkeeper who laughed with us, someone who stopped to help with directions, a waiter who spent a few minutes talking about the city, or a stranger who simply greeted us warmly.

Those moments help turn a place from somewhere you visited into somewhere you remember.

I also think Montpellier resonated with me because of its youthful character. With such a large student population, the city feels progressive, energetic, creative, and alive. I spent much of my younger adult life in a college town, and I’ve always appreciated what young people bring to a community: new ideas, curiosity, music, art, political energy, unusual haircuts, and an apparently inexhaustible ability to stay awake considerably later than I can now.

There’s something refreshing about it. And perhaps that’s what I mean when I say Montpellier had a good vibe. That’s hardly sophisticated travel terminology, but sometimes the old words work just fine.

Carla and I have discovered that places are a little like people. You can meet someone who is attractive, intelligent, accomplished, and perfectly pleasant and still not feel much connection. Then you meet someone else and within ten minutes you feel completely at ease.

Cities can be that way too. It isn’t always about which one has the most impressive architecture or the longest list of things to see. Sometimes it’s simply about how you feel while you’re there.

Do you enjoy waking up in the morning? Do you look forward to walking out the door? Does the place make you curious? Do you find yourself thinking, I could stay here a while? Montpellier did all of that for me.

I loved its streets, its youthful energy, its beauty, its friendliness, and the wonderfully human scale of daily life there. It didn’t simply give us things to see. It gave us a place we enjoyed being.

And increasingly, that may be the highest compliment I can give a city.

I hope someday Montpellier finds its way into your travels.

And who knows? Perhaps it will find its way into your heart too.

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