Sunday 10th March
We said goodbye to our fortified city this morning and hopped on the bus to Aix-en-Provence!
A few hours later and we were lugging our bags a good few km uphill from the bus station into the city. We arrived to the most amazing apartment-hotel (that of course, we got for a bargain), dropped our bags and then once we had de-sweated, headed out to explore. It was the perfect Sunday. We spent the day meandering the beautiful french streets of this gorgeous little town.
We stopped for ice cream (thanks Pete!) and wandered through some markets.
Along the way, down some street, we ended up in another cute little square where there was a farmers market and the most amazing buskers. One guy was playing the saxophone and the other was on the guitar and singing both insanely high and low Opera.
A little later in our meanderings we found our new favourite thing, French Tacos!
It is such a beautiful town, with typical french architecture, of coloured buildings with french windows and shutters. Absolutely gorgeous.
After we had explored every street and alley there seemed to be within the old town, we headed back to our hotel for the evening.
We both enjoyed a long shower and being able to wash our hair (the last place had a weird shower head that pointed at the wall so you had to wet yourself down, then soap, then try and rinse yourself off, so defs no hair washing there).
We had a nice evening enjoying being in such a nice place.
Monday 11th March
We had a delightful start to the day. We rolled out of bed to the sun shining, and decided it was a rosti morning. That's right we have a few rosti up our sleeve from Switzerland, you didn't think we'd leave without any did you??
After our rosti we headed into town for a wander around and stopped in at a patisserie for morning tea. We got a couple of custard and raspberry tarts courtesy of Pete for my birthday (thanks broski!), and an almond croissant for later.
It was then time to check out from our hotel and get back on the road to our next destination!
A few hours later we arrived in Montpellier!
The bus was late, but that actually gave us perfect timing for the tram...or so we thought. We figured out how to get the tickets, and then figured out the tram to catch, jumped on, then realised a couple of stops in that we were going in the wrong direction! Oh no! We jumped off at the next stop and got on the right tram this time, but now our tickets wouldn't validate because we'd already validated them but for the wrong direction! We made it to the change over, then in the end just walked the rest of the way, it wasn't far at that point!
We arrived at our gorgeous little Air BnB in a cute pedestrian street, and by the looks (and smell) of it, the place is been completely re-done recently. It's so cute!
We then headed out and had a little wonder around our side of the town before grabbing some groceries for a nibbly dinner.
While we were wandering, we saw a really cool store that had a whole bunch of paper sculptures!
Tuesday 12th March
We had found a substitute rosti in the French supermarket last night that we thought we would give a go, so brunch this morning was substitute mini rosti with sausages.
I feel like the substitute rosti are more of an adaptation of rosti, and perhaps more like a hash brown, but not really. Either way, it was still a small heavenly potato pancake.
We spent the morning wandering the streets of Montpellier and exploring side streets and alleys, constantly finding little shops and local coffee shops at every turn. We came across a triumphal arc that was absolutely beautiful, and an old aquaduct not far from our place.
We then stopped in at a little bakery and patisserie and I order us lunch (zucchini quiche) and afternoon tea (nutella beignet) completely in French (very proud of myself).
We then took our goods and made our way out to the zoological garden just outside of the city. As part of a conservation charity it is free to go into the zoo, so we ate our lunch while watching the giraffes go about their business and then spent the afternoon wandering around looking at all the animals.
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