This August edition, all about our very event-filled July, is being sent today because tomorrow and the next day, August 1, are going to be super event-filled! Tomorrow we sign our lease for 123 Rue Alexndra David Neel, No. 506 in this building called Higher Roch:
July 3rd – Montpellier’s Blues Festival at Promenade du Peyrou
Even though we knew the music would not begin until 21h (9 p.m.) we were standing behind maybe fifty or sixty others on line waiting to enter at 20h. The sun at this hour is still fierce, and with the bandstand set up at the western end in front of the water tower we knew we would be looking directly into it. When we were able to enter, we found seats on the base of the Louis XIV (the “sun king”) statue in the center of the Promenade, Having foolishly decided to not wear a hat I made do with wrapping my shirt around my head. Even so I kept one eye on the first bands preparation and the other on the shrinking distance between the fiery ball and the tops of the trees. Shortly after 21h the band began – and
it was worth the ordeal of waiting. The pictures below and next page will give you an idea of the latter.
I only wish it would be possible to share the music with you. We stayed only for this group, but it was worth it.
July 4th & Fête Nationale du 14 Juillet et (bien sûr) Heure d’été
July literally began with a bang – actually two! In France July 4th is just another day, but we were not going to forget our American roots; and what better way to do that but to head to the beach. After visiting all the ones near us we chose to go to La Grande-Motte on the 4th for an overnight visit. Getting there only requires taking the Ligne 1 tram to Place de France next to Odysseum (no fare for us residents) and then the LiO (I mis-spelled it “Oli” last month) 606 bus (€2 apiece per ride, about $2.16 at today’s exchange rate) from there to the harbor at La Grande-Motte. It was a short walk from there to the apartment Bonny had found on line and about a ten-minute walk from the beach. After dropping our bags there and having lunch (and my obligatory and traditional 4th of July hotdog) before checking in we headed for Plage du Couchant (Sunset Beach) and the largest, and about a 15-to-20-minute walk. It is so wide and so long that it wasn’t crowded at all – but is was windy, very windy! The sun was hot, the water wonderful, the sky perfect, just so windy that after less than an hour we had had enough, and walked back to get ready to go to dinner.
But the 4th of July isn’t all beaches and shopping. That evening we indulged in a different kind of fireworks (below)
July 10th – No. 506, 123 Rue Alexandra David Neel Is Our New Home
Completed in 2022, Residence Higher Roch is the newest high-rise apartment building in Montpellier, and less than a five-minute walk to Gare Saint Roch, ten minutes to Place de la Comedié, and there’s an Intermarché (supermarket) next door. We received the word this morning (10 July) that the owner (and our future landlord) had accepted us as his tenants. We had been holding our breath, as this place meets just about everything we were looking for in our next apartment here. Not just the location, which is perfect, but the space, the finishes, the kitchen, and the wrap-around
covered terrace with access from every room is what we had hoped for. Even though it doesn’t have a walk-in shower, everything else was ten out of ten so we decided that we can adopt to its particular tub/shower arrangement.
left to right: (1) Higher Roch from Gare Saint Roch
(2) le Gare from 506
(3) living room & terrace
(4) kitchen alcove
(5) lobby entrance at 123 Rue Alexandra David Neel
(6) lobby view from residents’ private terrace above street level
(7) view from the residents’ terrace looking up, the second wavy band from the bottom is the edge of the No. 506 terrace
(8) view of living room looking toward kitchen alcove with its access to the terrace.
The terrace is over 200 square feet and wraps around the corner with access from all rooms. The apartment has two bedrooms, is centrally air conditioned, and the views from the terrace are to the north and east. All the negotiations for our lease and leaving 55 bis Avenue Georges Clemenceau in good graces were successfully completed and we signed our lease for 123 Rue Alexandra David Neel, No. 506, 34000 Montpellier at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, July 31st. Moving day, and the beginning of our lease is the following day, August 1, and I will have more to say about that next month.
July 13th-15 th – La Grande-Motte for Fête Nationale du 14 Juillet
We liked La Grande-Motte so much that we went back there to celebrate the holiday known everywhere – except in France – as Bastille Day. But this time we treated ourselves to staying at Le Mercure Hotel directly on the yacht basin in a 6th floor room with a balcony looking out on the Mediterranean – the perfect place from which to watch the fireworks.
Spectacular ending to a perfect summer day. Next morning we took a leisurely stroll around the harbor before having our petit dejeuner at Alma Coffee, a place we discovered when we came for the 4th of July. We’ve decided that La Grande-Motte will be our “get -a-way go-to” whenever we need to escape city life. For the rest of July, and all of August, of course, it will be packed with “vacances”, but come September we just might take another get-away here.
July 16th-31st – Le Vie Quotidien a Continué
Well, I am going to spare you all the gory details of what it took us to get from 55 bis Avenue Georges Clemenceau to Higher Roch at 123 Rue Alexandra David Neel (a distance of less than a mile – i.35 Km) and tell you about the rest of the month with pictures.
Blossoms everywhere you go, and politics, and the TaM’s Ligne 5 work continues, but it’s not all work and no play. There’s music … and okay, it’s not an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny bikini, and the polka dots aren’t yellow, but Bonny wore this for the first time that day.
À bientôt
John
La Vie de Montpellier 
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