Montpellier Cat-a-blog

For Hercules’s twelfth labor, he had to descend into Hades to capture the three-headed dog beast, Cerberus, who prevented the dead from leaving and the living from entering Hades.  Our task in Montpellier, France wasn’t dissimilar to Hercules’s, except our Herculean task was to ascend five flights of stairs and guard three hairless cat beasts.

Our lovely host warned us, providing detailed instructions of the cats’s idiosyncrasies, previous reviews further emphasized their behavior, but our underestimation of the task was quickly apparent. Within minutes we were terrorized, as one slapped Patricia on the forehead. We had entered a different reality, the modern day underworld of these hairless cats. 

The presence of any food, maybe even the thought of food, made the cats swarm.  

We had made fifteen oatcakes, secured them in a cabinet, returned from a short walk to the market to discover the oatcakes completely gone and the cats relaxed and content.  For 3 days we waited in fear of oatcake-obstructed cat bowels or that the cats would force us to make more for them.  Cat and human meals were choreographed.  To feed the cats we had to quickly dispense their individualized meals, and then separate them into different rooms of the house; bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. To feed us, we enticed the cats into the room that had a closed door, made dinner, then one of us would release the cats and the other would quickly bring the food into the only room where the door closed so we could eat dinner.

It was not all frightening, once the Hellcats were fed, they would calm down, and sit on our laps in a search of warmth. The desire for warmth and company extended to bedtime with the cats crawling under the covers with us. This was its own level of creepiness; one felt like a buzzcut, another a poorly shaved leg, and the other like a four legged scrotum; all with claws and teeth.

We made daily escapes from feline Hades, there was plenty to explore in Montpellier. The apartment was a quirky converted attic apartment, on a picturesque narrow street (duh, it’s France) lined with high end boutiques, cheese shops and cafes (again, it’s France).  We were just up from the Place de la Comedie, anchored in the center by the fountain of the three Graces (beauty, charm and joy), considered an emblem of Montpeillier.

Montpellier is a university town with very distinct neighborhoods, all beautiful. The old town with buildings dating back to the 1600s.

Of course, there was a Christmas Market, tucked behind their Arc de Triumph, with a great view and pleasantly a man who we thought was a Baltimore Orioles fan, but he had no idea who the Orioles were or what baseball was either. He just liked the hat.

Plus, like most French cities, there were flea markets. The Peyrou flea market is below the aqueduct (constructed in the 1750s),

and another in the most remarkable (bizarre?) part of town, Antigone. Antigone is an award-winning faux Roman planned community (housing, shopping) complete with replicas of classic Roman buildings and sculptures.

Faux Rome inspired us to voyage to Nimes, dubbed the most Roman city outside of Rome.  Why? Well it has a pantheon (Maison Carrée) amphitheater (les Arènas)-still used, a roman aqueduct on the outskirts of town (Pont du Gard), the terminus of the aqueduct (Castellum Divisorium)- the only other one in existence is in Pompei, and ancient gates on the Via Domitia (main Roman road).

More roman ruins in the Jardines de la Fontaine, a French/Roman mashup park designed in 1745 around a spring and ancient temple. The Quais de la Fontaine channels the spring into fountains and then out through the city. The gardens also include “the great tower” dating from 15 BC. The ancient roman temple to Diane was probably a roman library but the garden designers thought temple to Diane sounded better.

If that was not enough, Nimes has a beautiful esplanade leading from the train station to the coliseum which of course included an Advent market and carnival. 

Another short 1 euro train ride to Avignon. For us, another classically French, emotionally destabilizing moment when approaching this massive, overwhelmingly massive Palais des Papes. This was the massive, very massive home of the popes during the 14th century.  

Why were the popes living in France? Italy was in turmoil so the King of France, demanded invited the entire Catholic infrastructure to move and expand here until a return to Rome. Construction began in 1252 with the pope and company moving there in 1309, leaving in 1377 and then the “antipopes” moved back in 1403( who were the antipopes?) then eventually the popes left but held on to the property for 350 years. This massive, truly massive complex entered years of shabby chic, until the French Revolution, followed by Napoleon, who reclaimed the massive property, turning it into army barracks and a prison. Crazy that the largest medieval gothic church, reflecting the height of 14th C artistry and construction was just left to molder. Now it sits, the Palais des Papes an anchor to two other massive, massive buildings built into the old city ramparts and a huge rock. 

The rest of Avignon  was a bit less intense. We walked along the river to see the Pont d’Avignon, which used to link the rest of France to the Palais des Papes, but now just stops in the middle of the river, destroyed by repeated floods.

Then a walk along the canal, on the  charming Rue des Teinturiers  which was the center of Avignon’s silk spinning and dyeing industry from the 1300s – 1800s and now is just “painfully cute” as per the Crazy Tourist website.

Each day we returned to our own personal Herculean labors, cleaning the 4 litter boxes, playing keep-away with the food, performing the meal dance. and going to bed with the triple threats while listening to the pounding bass of the almost all night discotheque downstairs, last call 5 am. Hades after hours.  Even hell has its routines, but they were never mundane, rather an entertaining challenge. Would we attempt to do this Herculean labor, again? Hell and back? Absolutely.