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I stayed in Montpellier for two nights. It has a lovely Place de la Comedie (I've been noticing they use a lot of the same street and square names in France) and a pedestrian promenade. There is also a large shopping mall called Polygone. Walk behind the mall and you'll find place de l'Europe which features a *huge* Olympic sized pool. Keep walking and you'll reach Antigone, an area with nice government buildings, water, fountains, a statue and many restaurants. I ate dinner here and the neighbouring "Australian bar" was hopping for a monday night!
Montpellier is a university town. There were tons of students eating and drinking at cafes near university buildings. Next to the faculty of medicine is la Cathedrale Saint-Pierre, which has a 'massive silhouette,' as the tourist brochure says. It's super cool and gothic looking and I'm sad I got there 5 minutes after it closed.
Montpellier also has a miniature l'arc de triomphe leading to la place royale du peyrou, which has a large statue of Louis XIV and a 'gazebo' type monument called le chateau d'eau. If you look around you can also see Jesus on the cross near the gates.
After seeing a brochure I decided to take the train to a town called Nimes. It is home to one of the best preserved Roman amphitheaters. I did the audio tour. It was awesome to sit in the arena and learn about the gladiator fights, executions (prisoners etc) and human/animal fights that took place there. I walked around the arena and even went into the gladiators quarters, which were smaller than I expected. I can't imagine what it would feel like, sitting in that room about to fight and possibly die. Then again it was their job, but even the best of them (who won 16 or 17 times) went down in the end.
With an all inclusive ticket I also saw a 3 D film called "Heroes of Nimes" at the beautiful temple La Maidon Carree. The film was quite good! It acted out important times in Nimes history and I got to see some of the countryside too. Finally I climbed the Roman tower called la tour Magne for a great view of the city. The gardens leading to the tower were also lovely, which distracted a bit from the climb.
Both were lovely places!
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