Day 13 - Sunday, February 9 - We walk through the Antigone and the Esplanade de l'Europe to the Lez River, and lunch unwittingly at an "American" restaurant. Sunny 51°F (10°C)

Sunday dawned cold and clear, and we decided on a big breakfast before a long walk exploring the Antigone district and the area down by the Lez river. Unfortunately, the toaster doesn't work, so we had sautéd toast in a frying pan. Sounds more fancy than it was.

The route down to the river starts from the Place de Comedie and proceeds through a large shopping mall called The Polygon. Out the other side is the Antigone. This district was designed and built in the late 1970s early 1980s, so it feels pretty different from the Ecusson historical area. The idea was to develop eastward toward the Lez river.

On our way, we paused at this statue of Jean Jaures - he's everywhere in France, perhaps rightly so.

A fun traffic sign indicating traffic flow in the Antigone:

Also spotted these stairs - and thanks to Google Image search, I learned that this is a tribute to Thomas Sankara, who was the president of Burkina Faso from 1983. The stairs are a tribute to him, as he was assassinated because he "disturbed the Françafrique"; it's an interesting side quest so follow the links to learn more about this interesting street art.

As we wandered, we came across this swimming pool, which we believe was part of the 2024 Olympics last summer:

Terre de Jeux translates to "Playground". We did the research, and discovered that Montpellier was given the designation "Terre de Jeux 2024" due to the amount of sports activities that the city encompasses. Montpellier hosted the training base camps for several countries (Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Africa). In any case, the building is huge.

We then walked through this curved building which was enormous and felt very institutional, almost Soviet.

It was fairly deserted when we were walking around, because it was a Sunday and most shops and restaurants close for the day.

There is a statue there which is a copy of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, considered a masterpiece of Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic era and dates from the beginning of the 2nd century BCE. The original statue has been on display in the Louvre at the top of the main staircase since 1884. It depicts the Greek goddess Niké (Victory) with her head and arms missing.

Beyond the statue, we went down to the banks of the Lez river. It's quite built-up, surrounded by concrete with several weirs to control the current. In the picture below you can see the walkway across the river sitting on the river's surface just beyond the pillar.

We crossed to the other side, and discovered a public space where, in the great tradition of French political cartooning, many pieces of protest art were hanging:

This one is about immigration / migration:

This one includes a dig at DT where the dialog translates to: "Is it for preventing Mexicans from entering??" "It's to prevent Americans from leaving!"

This one say "In search of life on Mars" "It comes from Earth" "How ugly are they over there?"

Adjacent to this place is the building that is perhaps the most famous in Montpellier, L'Arbre Blanc (the White Tree). The White Tree, designed by architects Sou Fujimoto, Nicolas Laisné and Manal Rachdi was built in 2019, has 17 floors, and is 56 meters (213 feet) high. It has many technical innovations, including cantilevered terraces up to 7.5 meters long (24.5 feet) (a world first in 2019), which show a way of living both “inside and outside “. The terraces also make it possible to reduce energy consumption. This building was voted as the most beautiful residential building by ArchDaily magazine in 2020.

Beyond the L'Arbre Blanc, the river gets a bit more wild.

so we crossed back over.

Looking back up the river toward L'Arbre Blanc:

We headed back toward the Ecusson via some side streets and enjoyed exploring a different part of town:

There is art everywhere we look - I appreciated very much these plants someone is caring for on the side of a decorated drainpipe:

When we got back to our neck of the woods, we decided to stop for lunch at a place that looked promising, called "Le Mustang". It was not too busy and advertised some interesting sounding dishes. Turns out, it was an "American style restaurant" which we didn't realize until we were seated upstairs and saw this mural:

However, we did have this nice view of the square (unfortunately just a bit too chilly to sit outside)

And the food was delicious - more Italian than American. We had a salad and pasta carbonara to share:

With a couple of beers it was just what we needed after a long walk!