Montpellier in the Fall, and Sommières

 

The rooftops of Sommières.

It’s fall in Montpellier again. The leaves are turning, and falling off the trees. It’s not as spectacular as New England, but, unlike California, it’s clear something’s happening. After that nasty hot humid summer we’ve finally gotten relief in the form of weeks of glorious weather. Now it’s still warm, but we’ve lost the sun and gained plenty of atmospheric moisture. Overcast, and feeling of rain… but all we get is humidity. We’ve been waiting for winter like the drop of the other shoe, but it’s still not cold. Hooray!

The Saturday market under Les Arceaux

Another sign of fall: we went to one of our favorite markets, the Saturday market under the old aqueduct (called Les Arceaux—the Arches). This is a true farmers’ market, with producers bringing their fruits and vegetables, fish and cheeses, roast suckling pigs and poor naked little skinned rabbits. (Other weekly markets sell clothes, bedding, housewares… but not this one.)

These mushrooms are called cèpes--they're big!

Sliced up cèpes and some unidentified tiny champignons.

And it's not just the mushrooms that are gorgeous.

And we saw something we hadn’t seen before: mushrooms! Champignons. Funghi. Setas. Big ones, that I’d never seen before. I don’t like to eat mushrooms, but they sure are interesting!

It's a popular place!

Oh, and those arches… the aqueduct was built in 1765 to supply water to the growing city of Montpellier. If it bears a resemblance to the Pont du Gard, the Roman aqueduct from 16 centuries (!) earlier, it’s because the builder, Henri Pitot, built the roadway at the base of the Pont du Gard. And he, apparently, was quite taken with the original design. (Read about our visit here.)

Le Pont du Gard in the winter sunshine; inspiration for Les Arceaux.

Henri Pitot was a local, born—and died—in a small town near Montpellier. Tasked with measuring the flow of the river Seine through Paris, he essentially developed hydrodynamics, the study of moving fluids. Today every modern aircraft has a Pitot tube, a—yes—tube that uses Pitot’s principles to measure air speed.

 

Ran into our neighbors on the street the other day. Nothing makes you feel settled like running into people you know! He pointed out that their building hasn’t had to turn the heat on yet. That’s a particularly good thing, given the run-up in natural gas prices due to the war.

Speaking of gas, France has a different battle going on: nationwide refinery strikes. (Something about windfall oil company profits leading to significant raises for company executives, but nothing for the workers… same old story!) Many stations haven’t had fuel, so we’ve been keeping a low car profile. But after three weeks of not starting the engine we decided that enough was enough, and five of us went on a little day trip.

The bridge into Sommieres.

Our goal was the town of Sommières and its most excellent Saturday morning flea market.

The tree-shaded market place near the river.

We were there about a year ago, and were happy to return. The town is built along a river, quite a lovely site. The market specializes in brocante, stuff that fits in that wide gap between genuine antiques and junk. Kitchen stuff like glasses (both matched sets and bizarre one-offs) and grandma’s china set. Lamps from the 50s and 60s. Odd decorative items in colors long out of fashion. And my personal favorite, tools. Old tools. Mostly cleaned and polished and oiled and ready to go to work. Most with functions that are obvious, but also quite a few purpose-designed for a particular special task in a field that no longer exists. Horse shoeing pillars. Hammers and wedges used in barrel making. One table had an exquisite collection of weights for use in pan balances, fitted boxes holding a dozen or more brass weights ranging from 10 grams to one kilogram.

Pruning tools, used in the vineyard.

Stuff, important to someone, some time. The busts on top are Tintin, a character in the incredibly popular comic
 of the same name, and the Captain (I think), also in the same comic. As for the rest...

More tools! I particularly like those wooden-handled pipe wrenches.
(Wait... are those levels? I need a level! Why didn't I see those before...?) 

Wandering among the tables piled with goods, puzzling over their use, I got the feeling that I would have liked to want something. A tiny hope that something would show up that really spoke to me that I would bring home with great satisfaction and admire every day, feeling so pleased that I had found it.

We take a break for some refreshment, coffee and hot chocolate: Mark, Mary, Debra, Paul, Paula

But no. I’ve never been a collector, and our travels have trained us not to want things, however desirable, that would burden us. Someday we’re going to leave here, and the less we need to carry away the better! Nothing made the cut. 

Heading back to lunch from Sommieres.--our restaurant is at the end of the bridge on the far right.

We eventually reached our limit of admiring other people’s junk/fine collectables—lunch time! We’d booked at table at a crêperie on the river, just across the bridge from the town gate. It was endlessly pleasant, watching the water and studying the ancient bridge and the people crossing it. After (yet another!) fine lunch we re-crossed the bridge and entered the small but well-preserved town center.

 

Paula at lunch.

We go through the arch and into the town...

...for another of long-armed Mark's selfis.

We prowled through the stone streets, eventually finding the path to the former castle overlooking the town. After admiring the views out over the town and the countryside we headed back down. Passing a friendly café, we stopped for another round of coffee and hot chocolate.

A rather plain church with a rather plain name, "Eglise Catholique de Sommières". But vibrant. It's purple!

Really purple!

Mark got this photo of me taking a Sommières panorama.

It had been a good day. None of us had found anything that we really couldn’t do without. But it was a fine outing. We made our way back across the bridge to our car, and the drive home.

Nothing to do with Sommières, but a classic view of Montpellier in the fall sunlight.

And finally, from our terrace, a spectacular end-of-September double rainbow over the construction cranes.