Occitanie Amuse Bouche

I boarded a MegaBus on 65th and Power Inn Road in Sacramento at 6 a.m. and left my wife and son with a bunch of cooked food in the refrigerator: grilled shrimp, steak, mushrooms, bell peppers, rigatoni Bolognese, an assortment of expensive cheeses, and snacks from Trader Joe’s. Frozen bicycle art near Saint Anne United Airlines Flight 990 was scheduled to depart San Francisco International at 2:50 p.m. and arrive at Paris Charles de Gaulle 10:35 a.m. the next day. I chose United over Air France, which also offered a non-stop to Paris, because United’s flight was on a new 787 Dreamliner, and because I was able to buy a seat with human-sized leg room. Also, I knew United would be on its best behavior after the incident in Chicago where they forcibly removed a doctor from an Iowa-bound flight because they overbooked. My flight was one hour late out of SFO because of a delay by the Summer of Love's 50th Anniversary. catering company. We landed at 11:40 a.m., which meant m

Here is a summary of some of what I did in Montpellier: Musée Fabre Upon entering the Fabre, it looked like there were only a few rooms of Baroque-period paintings, but that was before I discovered the staircase. Local painter François-Xavier Fabre founded the museum in 1825, and it was renovated in 2007. There's an entire  room dedicated to the work of Frédéric Bazile (1841-1870), who was a close friend of Monet's. Bazile's work is currently on exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. I saw two paintings by Peter Paul Reubens, the famous Flemish painter, and then came the flood of painters about whom I knew nothing but whose works moved me to write down their names: Jan Weenix, Abraham Hondius, Jan Van Huysum, Jean Ranc, Jean Raoux, Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, Hyacinthe Rigaud, and Carle Van Loo. Jardin des Plantes The University of Montpellier was established in 1289 and is one of the oldest in the world. The medical school predates the  uni

Pic Saint Loup I met my wine tour guide, Bértrand Bosc of Instant Terroir  in front of the Montpellier Tourist Office at 10:00 on a Monday morning. Joining me was Simon, a fellow solo traveler from th e United Kingdom. Bértrand is a 37-year old father of three who has been doing wine tours of Pic Saint Loup for 8 years. He runs a bed and breakfast with his mother, whom we got to meet near the end of the tour. We hopped into the back of Bértrand's van and left Montpellier for the hills. During the drive, Bértrand explained that Pic Saint Loup is one of 300 Appellation d'origine Protégée ("A.O.P."), which is the European Union's equivalent of the old French classification, Appellation d'origine Controlée. There are 59 chateaux in the Pic Saint Loup A.O.P., which is defined by both their location in that part of the country and their unique book ( cahier ) of rules. Bértrand (left) explaining winemaking One rule is any red wine produced with &q

Montpellier has a very affordable bicycle rental service with kiosks near the Tourist Office, train station, Observatory, Perols (near Carnon), and possibly other locations as well. You register with a credit card, and you can use any bicycle for any length of time for a week. The price is 0.50 euros per hour, and the usage time is counted between when you check out and check back in at one of the kiosks. The kiosks at the Observatory and at the Tourist Office didn't work for me, so I went to the one next to the train station, which is across the street from the Montpellier transportation office. Once I registered and gave my birthdate month and day, the system assigned a checkout code to me, and from that point I could lock and unlock the bicycle using its built in cable by simply entering my birthdate information into the bicycle's number pad on the handlebars. The bicycle path begins next to the train station. I rode up the incline, on the same road the tram takes,