Last night in L’isle sur La Sorgue and on to Montpellier via Saintes Marie Del a Mer

 

Not much to say about yesterdays drive from L’isle sur La Sorgue to Montpellier via Saintes Marie de la Mer except that when we got to Saintes Marie they wouldn’t let us drive in. Every access road to the town was road blocked by concrete barricades and giant rocks that can only have been put there by cranes. Tourists cars were parked for miles short of the city. I was so looking forward to mouille frites there. Not that Russell minded because he don’t like shellfish (I think he’s selfish). I also wanted to show him the almost white Flamingos that feed in the tidal creeks of this town. But stuff that. I’m not walking 2k into town from the car park. Who wants to walk that far?

So we headed straight to Montpellier instead. Well if our sat nav didn’t shit itself trying to get us into Saintes Marie de la Mer, it sure did trying to find our hotel in Montpellier.

She didn’t know the street our hotel was in, so to get to the nearest cross road  was a nightmare. She continually tried to send us the wrong way up one way streets. Somehow and without her help, we saw a sign leading to our digs. We followed that to the hotel and then tried to locate the hotel capark which was on the corner of rue de Verdun and Rue the one she didn’t recognise. I was smart enough to ring the hotel that morning to get the code to punch into the post to get the bollard down to get you access to the street the car park was situated in. I pulled over to the side if the street and Russell jumped out to punch the code in. Of course, nothing happened. So I’m pulled over sitting in the car , hoping nobody wants to access the road I’m blocking and Russell goes to the hotel to ask for assistance.  A receptionist comes out and says “Zee car must be sitting on zis pad while you punch Zee number in” . Well why didn’t Dumbell tell me zat zis morning when I asked what Zee code was? So we do zat and Zee bollard goes down into Zee road. We then have to get into the street that the basement garage is in before the bollard comes up again. So freaking Pierre on his shitty little motor scooter gets in Zee way as I’m trying to get into Zee street. I give him a toot and he stops,  turns around and gives me Zee who farted look. I purse my lips , grit my teeth and give him a death glare and a gob full. He moves and we get into the car park and we check in . 

It’s a pretty flash hotel, one that airline staff sleep in on overnighters. Russell gets his own room because I’m coughing up a lung during the scenic drive here. We then head out for a wander around town. Gotta say that we are not raving fans of Montpellier. Quite busy , but soldiers walking around the streets armed with ak47s, lots of rubber stoppers patrolling too. There were a few squares with the usual bars and cafes and tables and chairs all around out front but it didn’t have the same warmth as other places we’d been too. Had a couple of sherbets anyway and some Patatas bravas because we couldn’t get French fries. Russell wasn’t a fan. Then we found a pub closer to our hotel and had a couple there. They had a tapas menu so we thought we’d go back to the pub for dinner. We did, after a break and that proved to be a mistake. The food was less than ordinary. So we headed back to our hotel after a short walk to really prove we really didn’t like the joint. 

Back at the hotel I ordered a rum and ice, as a nightcap, or maybe I should say “gouge”cap. It was 17 bloody Euro. Do the conversion. Russell, being infinitely smarter than me ordered nothing. We had an early night and a great sleep.