Day 20 - Saturday, February 16 - We join a walking tour of Montpellier, meet some new friends, and connect over a delicious lunch in the square. Sunny 55°F (12°C)

Given how much we enjoyed the walking tour in Toulouse, and how much we learned about the history and important places in the city, we signed up for a walking tour of Montpellier. These tours are a great way to get oriented in a new city, have the important interesting spots pointed out (often with insider tips on what's a hit and what's a miss), learn the history and interesting data points of the new place, and get some questions answered by someone who lives there and knows the place well.

The day started off a bit gray as we left our cozy apartment.

On the way to the tour meet up spot (by the Three Graces Fountain in the Place de La Comedie, of course), we spotted one of these markers in the ground.

Turns out, Montpellier is a stop on the The Arles Way or the Southern Route, of the Santiago di Compostela trail. This marks the way for thousands of folks who do a "camino" or pilgramage (really just a hike), from Arles by the Rhone all the way to Santiago de Compostela, in the far northwest corner of Spain. There are four pilgram trails to Compostela; this marker indicates the route of the of the most southern, the Voie d'Arles. Looks like it's about 800 kilometers - about thirty days of walking - along the trail to the Spanish border.

Fortunately, today's tour will be nowhere near that length! Probably.

After meeting the group at the fountain, the guide, Vanessa (a student from Columbia studying 3D animation at university here) took us to our first stop on the tour. Which was across the street from this little shop. You can see another tour (that one was in Spanish) across the street.

It's a bit difficult to see, but just below the balcony, to the left of the arched doorway, there's a statue of a man:

And if you zoom right in, you might notice, there's a dog at his feet with a piece of bread in his mouth. So this little statue is the prelude to the story of Saint Roch (a name we recognized because the train station in Montpellier is called Saint Roch).

Saint Roch is the patron saint of the sick and invalids, as well as dogs and dog-lovers. He was born in 1295 to a rich family in Montpellier. Tradition says he was born with a birthmark of a red cross on his chest. He joined the Franciscan Order and distributed his fortune among the poor. While living in Italy, he caught the plague while ministering to the sick and was expelled from the town. Ill and starving, he was saved when a hunting dog found him and brought him bread every day. He is often shown displaying a plague mark on his leg, and / or with a dog at his side, who bears a bit of bread in his mouth.

After his recovery, Saint Roch returned to Montpellier. His uncle, the governor, did not recognize him and cast him into prison as a spy. After five years in the prison, he died on August 16, 1379, stretched out on the ground and after receiving the Last Sacraments. He was recognized by the red cross on his chest, and his true identity was then known. Saint Roch was reputed to have performed many miracles of healing throughout his life. Saint Roch is usually portrayed holding a clapper to warn people of his approach and with a sore on his leg. He is always pictured with a dog.

Since 1485, his body has been in the San Rocco church in Venice, which gave a tibia to the Saint-Paul church in Montpellier, where the relic has been resting since, as well as its pilgrim’s stick.

We stopped by the Saint Roch church (built on the site of the former Saint-Paul church completed in 1867).

Across from the church, there's a building that has some elements painted on it:

You can see a banner with St. Roch and the dog, as well as the "reflection" of the church in the "windows":

The story is that the municipality would tax residents based on the number of windows, so they would only put in some windows and then paint others to even out the look and save money.

We were lucky that we had a smallish group as we wandered through the streets

We stopped off at a building that had formerly been a music school, but all that remained was this decoration on the walls.

Weird that it was on the second story.

Here's me looking up at it:

One interesting thing was the amount of street-art in the Écusson, considering it is a unique and historic landmark. The Écusson (meaning sheild) is the name given to the historical center of Montpellier, because of the shape of this district built in the Middle Ages, whose wall was bordered by ditches.

Here are some examples I liked:

In this one, the text translates to "A single being invites himself and everything starts again"

In several places, the art reflects a play on the name of the street, such as this one

"Plan Pastourel" is suggestive of Louis Pasteur, a French chemist who developed the process of pasteurization and principles of vaccination. Thus the healing heart.

Or this one:

"Rue L'Ancien Courier" or "The Old Courier" has an envelope above it. This artist signs his work with three dots you can just see to the lower right.

And then there was just some art that was interesting

AS we threaded through the back alleyways, we came to this instagram famous spot (don't all walking tours have these stops?).

So we got the obligatory snap:

The next part of the tour took us out of the back alleyways to the medical school, which is the oldest still in operation. In 2020, the faculty of Medicine celebrated it's 800th anniversary. Yep, it was founded on August 17, 1220. Which may explain why it looks so castle-like:

You can go inside and they have a little museum, but we didn't get the chance to see it as it was closed that day:

Next we headed over to the Jewish quarter, where we saw this interesting square with little gardens:

And the tour ended up by this building, which is quite an architectural feat:

The story goes that the corner of this building was cut out in this fashion so that carriages could more easily make the narrow turn around this corner. Neat!

After the tour ended, we went to lunch with a few people we met on the tour. Amy lives in Strausburg France, and was visiting Montpellier with her friend Susan who was visiting from their shared hometown of Ann Arbor Michigan. Maddison, from Sydney Australia, also joined us. She is traveling by herself through Europe on a trip after graduating from college.

The weather had turned warmer and it was a great relaxing lunch sitting in the sun and sharing our stories together.

A good day.