Nothing Toulouse except a night in Montpellier

Wednesday August 8 I woke up pleasantly surprised to see that Ryan was still breathing despite his foie gras intake the day before. We packed up our things and waved a fond farewell to Bordeaux, and hit the road for Toulouse. We wanted to break up the drive to the French Riviera so planned for 1 night in Toulouse and 1 night in Montpellier. All the hotels I've booked so far have turned out to be pretty good, but the day before we left for Toulouse I looked up the hotel address and realised I'd royally fudged it up (it was a chain, and I obviously booked the wrong one), and so we were staying out near an airport and space museum. D'oh!

Out in the sticks in Toulouse

No worries, we got to the main part of Toulouse early afternoon and had some lunch. For some reason Ryan chose Vietnamese (despite his mate telling him don't bother unless you're in Paris). Anyway, Ryan had the most disappointing pho in his life, and I had a pretty ordinary beef salad, but it was nice to have some greens! We wandered around Toulouse a bit, but from where we parked the car we couldn't really find the old town and it was getting pretty hot, so we both agreed that Toulouse was a bit of a travel fail and we'd just bunker down for a quiet evening in our hotel out in the sticks (which actually was very comfortable - recently renovated with the best bed and shower I think we've had!). Anyway, we got to catch up on emails and blogging and watch some Olympics. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant as well - I'm not sure why so many people were there - it must be a good stop-off point for business people or something. Anyway, I had the buffet (purely because I could see vegetables) and Ryan had another disappointing chicken dish. Lucky we could wash it all down with some of our favourite rose from Provence. Funny night.

The city walls of Carcassonne

The next morning we woke fairly early and well rested! I even got up and went for a brisk walk/jog which I have started to do every few days to try and slow down the inevitable weight gain! We checked out and drove to Carcassonne, a billion year old fortified city (built by the Romans) perched up on a hill. We had an early lunch of crepes at a place we'd read good reviews on, and they were great! A potent crepe suzette for Ryan and a tomato/cheese/mushroom one for me. Then we walked up to the striking looking 'la Cite' inside the city walls. It was crawling with tourists and was really starting to heat up, so we got some gelatis to keep cool! The town looked amazing (although too crowded), and had some great vistas out over the rest of the (newer) town. So we wandered around and battled the crowds for a little while before heading back to make our way to Montpellier.

Panoramic view from the old city of Carcassonne

So after about an hour on the road, we had reached the exit for Montpellier and lined up to pay our toll (12 or so Euros for that hour!) and it must have only been a few minutes before we got there, but when we passed through the toll gates there were cars everywhere at a complete standstill. It turned out that just up ahead a tanker, somehow, had turned on its side. (The only other accident we have seen on this trip was on the way to San Sebastian when we saw a car on its roof in a tunnel, so when they have accidents they seem to do it in spectacular fashion).

Traffic at a stand still

We were there before all the emergency crews arrived, who had to squeeze through the maze of impatient vehicles. We waited about an hour in that spot, and as it seemed as though no one was going anywhere, people started turning round and going back down the freeway (having to take another ticket, just for extra insult). I could see on google maps a couple of other alternative routes to Montpellier (completely back tracking of course) but everyone else had the same idea, not to mention that all vehicles behind us were now being shuttled down this way as well, so more traffic. Anyway, we eventually got there, but a 1 hour drive turned into a 3 hour drive which was pretty frustrating. We arrived at around 7pm, and fortunately, our hotel was very conveniently located this time! Hooray!

La Place de la Comedie in Montpellier (right near our hotel!)

Montpellier looked great - big squares and beautiful buildings. We stopped for a wine to ease the nerves of the traffic and manic driving on the way in before heading to a restaurant I'd booked called Playfood. It had great reviews on trip advisor, and was basically a place where there are little cups ('verrines') of all different foods and are 2 euro each. We were the first ones there and the guy who runs the whole show there and came up with the idea was very nice and friendly and explained how it all worked. When we said we were Australian he said he lived in Newtown for a little while! Small world! It turned out he worked for 6 months at Soni's, one of our favourite tapas bars that is no longer there. It was there that he came up with some of his ideas!

A photo of me (due to popular demand) enjoying some verrines

So we had a pretty large assortment of verrines - there were things like beetroot and goats cheese and "french toast" (but with banana and blue cheese - was yum!). It was great to be able to try lots of different flavours. And then there were a bunch of dessert verrines, like tiramisu (but without the coffee), caramel pannacotta and melon with vanilla bean. It was all great! Towards the end a bunch of cool looking hipster types set up nearby and started playing their tubas and euphoniums and trombones (which was red!) to Amy Winehouse's Rehab. They were awesome too.

Dessert verrines

Then we spent the rest of the night walking around the little old town, which looked really great, and stopped in at a couple of bars and watched the Olympics. We really loved what we saw of Montpellier and were sad we didn't have more time there, but have just put it on the growing list of places we have to come back to!