Occitanie Amuse Bouche

Romans put crocodiles on the first Nîmes coins I always associated bull fighting with Spain and Hemingway  novels. I didn’t know the French did bull fights until I visited Nîmes. Scattered across southern France are various arenas, some built by the Romans, others built later, and every summer the arenas host bull fights during féria , which are street fairs that dominate towns for several days. Another fun fact about Nîmes I learned is the word "denim" means "from Nîmes ( de Nîmes ). There is a direct TGV train from Montpellier to Nîmes that takes 30 minutes. The esplanade between the station and the tourist office features a stream of running water. Along the way are benches where you can rest, chat with friends, or simply people watch. I arrived in the early morning and stopped to get breakfast before venturing over to the Arena. I had my coffee, croissant, and orange juice outside, and I noticed across the street large tents with beer taps, counters,...

Outside the arena in Arles I would be surprised if you went to Arles without hearing about Vincent Van Gough. In 1888, Van Gough painted over 200 canvases there. It was in Arles where he "discovered light," which you can see from his paintings during that time, but don't expect to find any of his works there, because there aren't any. What you will find is a guided tour of the city (“Le circuit Van Gogh”) for 6 euros, where you can visit places that appear in some of his famous paintings. There’s also a Van Gough Foundation, which is a small Arles is near the mouth of the Rhône River museum of 200 works by other artists paying homage to Van Gough. That costs 9 euros. There's lots to read in the guide books about Van Gough. Not much, though, about Picasso. Instead of searching in vain for Van Gough, I chose instead to visit the Réattu Museum, which One of many Picasso works at Musée Réattu has works donated by Picasso in 1971, along with a large coll...

Sète: The Venice of Languedoc? Don’t take the bus to Sète from Montpellier. The TGV goes through Sète, but the local trains (TER, or Transport Express Régional) are more frequent, and it’s only a 20-minute ride. I left my flat at 8:15 and walked to Montpellier Station, printed out the ticket I bought on the SNCF app on my iPhone, and still had plenty of time to spare. Sète’s port dates back to Louis XIV and Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who financed its creation in the mid-1600s. Sète was a major export point for Languedoc wines, which were mostly fortified. The phylloxera outbreak  in the 1870s devastated much of Languedoc’s vineyards, and Sète became a major import hub for foreign wines. Later, the port began bringing in petroleum, and tropical fruit. Sète was written as “Cette” until 1928. Why the spelling change? I can’t find a ready explanation other than Sète appears to be the Occitan spelling. Locals are called Sétois. Since its creation, Sète has hosted water jous...

Choosing a cafe in Montpellier is like choosing a spouse: finding the right one for you. I read Lonely Planet’s recommendations for Sandwich board in front of Coffee Club Montpellier and proceeded to avoid every one of them. Sometimes, I was looking for a place where I could write. Ambience over coffee. Other times, I wanted a place for people watching: location over coffee. Finally, there were cafes where I went to be a writing poseur , a pretend-writer, which meant I had no intention of getting any writing done, even though my manuscript was on the table next to my espresso. It’s been said before that in France you pay for a table and coffee is the price,  the rental fee. Compare that to P Typical serving of Pastis with water and ice eet’s Coffee on Walnut and Vine in Berkeley, where the focus is the beverage. During afternoons at a Montpellier cafe, I ordered a Pastis , which is a lightly alcoholic anise drink served with water. You don't get that at Peet’s. A few ca...

Words carry unique DNA. As you travel through Occitanie, formerly Languedoc, you will see the names of cities and towns that sound nothing like standard French place names: Grazillees, VilleMoustaussou, Mazamet, and Mauguio, to name a few. The name "Languedoc" is a contraction of the words "langue" for "language" and "oc," which means "yes" in Occitan. The language spoken in northern France, the one we know today as French, uses "oui" instead of "oc" for "yes." The language of Oc was the language of the south of France, the language of 12th century troubadours. Much later, at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century Occitan experienced a small revival with the help of Provençal poet Frédéric Mistral, but overall, the language has been on a long, slow decline. The Mediterranean coast stretching from Valencia to Barcelona along Costa Brava, past Perpignan, Narbonne, Montpellier, Arles, Aix,...