Day 12 - Saturday, February 8th - We go for a walk in the pouring rain, get cold and wet, consider an alternate plan. Clouds, rain, and thunder 49°F (9°C)

The weather was terrible today with rain and wind, so we slept in. Eventually decided we should go out anyways, so we put on our hats and coats and convinced ourselves it wasn't raining that hard.

We walked over to an nearby square where there's a market and a UNIQLO department store:

We walked around the square and found one of those terrific French food markets:

The market is called Les Halles Castellane. We also noticed one of the many street art bicycles sticking out of walls in Montpellier near the sign:

We also found another square nearby that on any other day might have looked cozy, with big pines overhead, and lights under the umbrellas, however today, it was definitely not.

As we walked up to Montpellier's L'Arc de Triomphe, on the way, we noticed more of these little pixel street art icons all over the place.

I was able to find out that these icons are from an artist known only as Invader who places these all over the world . He's anonymous, kind of like Banksy, and has spread his art across many cities all over the world. It's interesting that although much of Montpellier's medieval old town is to be preserved (not sure how much are UNESCO world heritage), they still allow street art.

We continued up the avenue toward the L'Arc de Triomphe. We thought it was cool that cars drive through this monument.

This is when the rain really started pelting us. It wasn't pleasant.

Beyond L'Arc de Triomphe is La Place Royale du Peyrou; a big open space with a statue and an aqueduct on the farther end. They have popular events like antique and farmer's markets here on the weekends.

Here's a video of the space:

It was so rainy and uncomfortable, we decided to turn around and head back home to warm up and dry off.