In France, a Visit With the In-Laws (Finally) Becomes a Vacation
FEB. 26, 2015
La Place de la Comédie in Montpellier, home of the author's in-laws.
Credit
Nanda Gonzague for The New York Times
Personal Journeys
By
EMILY BRENNAN
In
Montpellier, cypresses grow as high as the bell tower of Eglise
Ste.-Thérèse. Whelks, caught that morning from the nearby Mediterranean
Sea, are sold by the dozen with a side of aioli at the covered market
Halles Castellane. The Musée Fabre, a national museum that houses works
by the likes of Delacroix and Courbet in a grand 18th-century chateau,
manages to feel inviting, not intimidating. Even its visitors, sipping
their espresso at the cafe Insensé on the front lawn, look more like
leisured houseguests than the sort of wearied tourists you see at the
Louvre.
None
of this had I noticed, tasted or experienced before my trip to
Montpellier last August, though it was my fifth in a decade, for
Montpellier is also the home of my in-laws.
While
my in-laws are lovely, and I always look forward to their visits to New
York, where we live, visiting them is not a terribly relaxing affair.
Like a foreign dignitary, I am escorted to lunches and dinners arranged
on my behalf, with sights pointed out to me en route. Never had I
explored the city and learned my way around because my husband, Fabrice,
always knew it. Montpellier, France’s eighth-largest city, is blessed
with a Mediterranean sun and a beautiful, walkable historic center, a
tourist destination in its own right, but because it is my husband’s
home city, a trip there never felt like a vacation to me.
Wherever
your in-laws may live, be it in France or in Florida, their home is a
place you are likely to return to, year after year. And if you’re like
me, married to an expat, you’ll spend all of your time off from work
there. I didn't consider it much of a sacrifice — if anything I saw it
as our penance for living so far away. And I maintained this gracious
outlook, exactly until I had a baby.
While
our 8-month-old daughter was depriving us of sleep last summer, I
hatched a plan to reclaim our vacation: We’d stay four days in
Montpellier, sightsee as much as we could between familial obligations,
and spend one night away at a bed-and-breakfast, leaving the baby with
my mother-in-law for some uninterrupted sleep. To execute this, I did
something I hadn’t done since I left Paris, where Fabrice and I met 10
years ago: I bought a Lonely Planet France.
Everything
I had known about Montpellier before then was from Fabrice, who, having
left at 18, perceived the city with a mix of boyhood nostalgia and
cocky teenage angst. On every trip we spent hours at the large
independent bookstore
Librairie Sauramps,
next to where Fabrice went to high school. One time I watched him,
after goofily flipping through comic books, as he sidled up to the
manager, a smug former classmate of his, and mentioned, casually yet
defiantly, that he now lived in New York City and waited for a reaction.
This
trip would be a chance to form my own relationship with Montpellier and
its countryside. Thumbing through the guidebook, I felt a tingle of
excitement I recognized from my bygone days of vacation planning. I was —
I could hardly believe it — looking forward to visiting my in-laws.
Along
the Mediterranean, less than an hour’s drive from Montpellier, are
beautiful port cities like Sète and Stes.-Maries-de-la-Mer. Surely they
would have offered a welcome change from my usual encounter with the
sea: Carnon, a seaside resort where Fabrice’s grandmother lives, as
exotic looking as the Jersey Shore. But for our night away from the
city, I wanted to head inland and see the arid landscape I had only
glimpsed from the highway to my father-in-law’s in Carcassonne.
Photo
At the Musée Fabre.
Credit
Nanda Gonzague for The New York Times
After
some research, I announced to Fabrice that we would be going to a
village whose name I now forget because he vetoed it. I protested that I
was supposed to be discovering his ancestral home on my own terms, but
then he brought up on his computer Google images of the Hérault Valley,
with its limestone crags, ravines and wildflowers rivaling those of its
more famous neighbor, Provence. Sometimes a local’s advice, I conceded,
trumps Lonely Planet’s.
After
three days in Montpellier, the region’s capital, we set out for the
countryside, and within 20 minutes of driving along Route D986, I felt
as if we were already in the deepest reaches of Languedoc-Roussillon.
Stone pines, their fragrance rushing in the car’s window, suddenly gave
way to gnarled shrubs, succulents and thickets of scraggly rosemary
climbing over limestone outcroppings. It was a strange mix of verdure
and inhospitality, this scrubland, and I asked what it was called.
“La garrigue,” my mother-in-law, Brigitte, answered from the back of the car, next to the baby.
Let
me explain how she and our daughter came to join us on our romantic
getaway: Talking to his mother over the phone, Fabrice had floated the
idea of going to a bed-and-breakfast, but before he got to the part in
which she would be keeping the baby at home, Brigitte exclaimed how
wonderful it would be for us all to get away. And who could begrudge
her?
As
much as the baby was now the main attraction, the woman still wanted to
see her son. We invited her along. “But the baby will be sleeping in my
mother’s room,” Fabrice assured me.
Photo
The Cascade of St.-Laurent-le-Minier, an hour's drive from Montpellier.
Credit
Nanda Gonzague for The New York Times
We
climbed out of her car at the foot of Pic St. Loup, a 2,159-foot
limestone mountain that from the highway looked like an arrow piercing
the sky. Its base near the village of Cazevieille, off Route D113,
though, had a gentle slope.
As
hikers began their ascent along a dirt path, we wandered among cork
oaks, picking at their porous barks and plucking sprigs of thyme for
Brigitte to take back to her kitchen. The sky was bright. Cicadas
buzzed. Less than 20 miles from Montpellier, and already I felt far
away.
I’m
not sure how we found Domaine de Mortiès, an organic winery at the
foothills of Pic St. Loup, but it was the kind of unplanned, delightful
discovery our previous trips to Montpellier never allowed. The beautiful
old limestone farmhouse looked shut, so we waited in the car while
Fabrice knocked at the door. It was a
Monday, a day that they don’t
normally do tastings, he told us when he returned. But the proprietor, a
woman named Pascale Moustiés, was willing to make an exception.
How
nice, I thought, as I followed Mme. Moustiés into the estate’s cave to
sample a flight of her wines for the usual price, free. Her demeanor,
though, was a reminder of typical French hospitality: While they may
accommodate you more readily than you’d guess, don’t expect the kind of
cheerfulness that Americans put on to hide the fact you are
inconveniencing them. Mme. Moustiés looked about as enthused as a
teenager working the checkout at Rite Aid. Still, the wine was good. Our
favorite was a minerally red of carignan grapes called La Mauvais Herbe
— weed, as in the unwanted plant, not cannabis. We bought a bottle and
thanked her.
Back
on D986, we headed north. The sky darkened and a light rain came. The
landscape was quickly becoming lusher again — I spotted oaks — and we
pulled to the side of the road in the village of St.-Laurent-le-Minier,
where the river Vis flows into a short but rapid waterfall. In better
weather, people swim in the pool below the waterfall, Fabrice said,
which I thought unlikely until two people with bathing suits strode past
us.
Photo
A 12th-century abbey in St.-Guilhem-le-Désert.
Credit
Nanda Gonzague for The New York Times
With the sun coming out, we took Route D110 to D113 to the
Cirque de Navacelles,
which Fabrice described as France’s Grand Canyon. It wasn't quite;
still, the Cirque is an eerie, awe-inspiring sight. The meandering Vis
River had cut a wide berth into the gorge's nearly 1,000-foot limestone
plateau, making a startling contrast between the bright green valley,
with the village of Navacelles at its center, and its jagged stone
walls. Even better, the view could be had from a cafe, the
Maison du Grand Site du Cirque de Navacelles.
Following the winding Route D130 south to D25 onto D9, we headed to our bed-and-breakfast, or gîte,
Domaine de Salente
in Gignac. The approach from Route A750 is not the most beautiful (the
highway was conspicuous among the low-lying vineyards), but once we
arrived at the 18th-century stone farmhouse and toured its cobalt blue
pool and beautifully appointed, contemporary-furnished guest rooms, I
knew we’d made the right choice.
After
a quick swim and poolside aperitif, thanks to a free bottle of rosé the
elegant proprietor, Bénédicte Tournay, brought us from her vineyard on
the grounds, we left for dinner in
St.-Guilhem-le-Désert.
The village, a stop on the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela, is
home to a 12th-century abbey, part of which I had already seen at
the Cloisters
in New York City (“A theft,” my husband said). The sun was setting as
we drove past the Pont du Diable over the Hérault River, so by the time
we arrived, the monastery was a crepuscular presence. I could barely
make out the river below and the hillside into which the limestone
buildings were supposedly dramatically built.
While Fabrice and Brigitte settled into La Table d’Aurore, the restaurant attached to the charming country hotel
Guilhaume d’Orange,
I pushed the baby in a stroller in the cobblestone streets until she
fell asleep. Under carnival lights in the hotel’s garden, we had a
leisurely and delicious dinner of lamb, roasted chicken and local trout,
while the baby dozed peacefully.
It
was on our return to the gîte that trouble started. The baby wailed all
the way from the car to our room, so we dismissed the idea of bringing
her crib up to Brigitte’s room. By the time I lulled her back to sleep,
it was nearly
1 a.m. Tomorrow was my turn to wake with her. If she could
sleep until
7 a.m., I calculated, that would be six hours — not so bad.
In the city’s historical center, the Rebuffy Pub.
Credit
Nanda Gonzague for The New York Times
She
was up at
5:30 a.m. Our room opened onto the garden, so I sat in a
canvas lounge chair and nursed her, my head buzzing from exhaustion. But
then sun rays flashed over the vine-covered hills, and in the
foreground the copses of stone pines figured like dark clouds in the
sky. What an ancient, magnificent sight it was.
The
baby was getting restless, so with her in my arms I walked around the
garden. This is an olive tree, that’s rosemary, this is lavender. I
plucked a bud and rolled it between my fingers for her to smell. Looking
to the horizon, now bright, I thought, “This place is beautiful.”
Not
exactly a revolutionary thought about the south of France, but somehow I
was just realizing it. Perhaps it was because of this baby, her budding
awareness of her surroundings forcing me to appreciate them. Or maybe
it was simply the first time I made an effort to explore my in-laws’
home as a place of beauty and culture, and not view it as an obligation.
Family dinners were not the reason I had seen so little of Montpellier
on past trips — I had never bothered to pay attention to its charms.
On
our way back to Montpellier, I began to see its originality. It lay not
in the center’s 19th-century architecture, stunning though it may be,
particularly the Place de la Comédie and the ornate Italianate opera
house there. Nor was it in its vibrant cafe culture, though seemingly
every back alley is lined with dimly lighted cafes teeming with young
people (among my favorites now are the pub
Le Rebuffy,
Au P’tit Quart d’Heure, and the
Comptoir de L’Arc). What makes Montpellier remarkable is the way nature unexpectedly asserts itself amid all of the stone and concrete.
Perhaps
my memory is recalling this too neatly, but it seemed as if our short
country visit was making me see, more vividly, the highway divider with a
hedge of pink bay bushes. Or the parking lot with two statuesque
cypresses at its entrance. Or the single olive tree at the center of a
roundabout. Much more interesting than the city’s plane-tree-lined
plazas were people’s gardens, overgrown with lemon trees, palm trees and
grapevines. Better still was the Jardin des Plantes, one of the oldest
botanical gardens in France and a magnificent trove of Mediterranean
flora.
The
night before we returned to New York, while the baby slept and Fabrice
did the wash, I sat on my grandmother-in-law’s balcony admiring the
Eglise St.-Roch and, in the distance, the illuminated towers of
Cathédrale St.-Pierre, proud that I now knew their names.
Then
came a thought that had marked the end of my most memorable trips, but I
had never had before in Montpellier. Looking out over the Spanish-tiled
houses, as I finished the last of the pastis, I thought, “I wish we had
more time here.”
If You Go
Montpellier
At the covered market
Halles Castellane (Rue de la
Loge; 33-4-67-66-29-92) you can buy everything from fresh fruit to
cheese to prepared food. Load your plate, grab a table on the terrace
and order coffee, wine or pastis from the roving waiter. The market is
open every day from
7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., except Sundays, when it
closes at
1:30 p.m.
The
Musée Fabre (39 Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle;
museefabre-end.montpellier-agglo.com;
open
Tuesday through
Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; admission, 6 euros,
about $6.70 at $1.13 to the euro) has an impressive collection of 17th-
to 19th-century European paintings, particularly of Montpellier-born
artists like Frédéric Bazille and Auguste-Barthélemy Glaize.
Along the bustling, tree-lined
Esplanade Charles-de-Gaulle are many lovely cafes and restaurants, including an outpost of the bistro Chez Boris (17 Boulevard Sarrail;
chezboris.com), which offers a dizzying number of beef cuts.
The
Jardin des Plantes de Montpellier (Boulevard Henri IV;
umontpellier.fr/universite/patrimoine/jardin-des-plantes), which boasts 2,000 plant species, is open
Tuesday through
Sunday; free.
Aside from a number of locally owned hotels in the city’s historic center there is the Jean Nouvel-designed
Courtyard by Marriott Montpellier (105 Place Georges Freche;
courtyardmontpellier.com),
about a mile and a half from La Place de la Comédie. The sun-drenched
pool makes the hotel feel less geared toward business travelers.
Outside Montpellier
The vertiginous
Pic St. Loup is a destination for hikers as well as oenophiles. Among some 60 wineries at its foothills is the beautifully situated
Domaine de Mortiès (F 34270 St.-Jean-de-Cuculles;
morties.com), which offers free tastings Wednesdays through Saturdays or by appointment.
The
Cirque du Navacelles is in the heart of mountainous
Causses and the Cévennes territory, recognized as a Unesco World Heritage site. For information on its hiking trails and neighboring villages, visit
cirquenavacelles.com.
The B&B
Domaine de Salente in Gignac (33-4-67-57-54-79;
salente.com),
which is also a vineyard, has four design-conscious rooms, starting at
90 euros, as well as a comfortable communal space with a kitchen. A
breakfast of fresh croissants, orange juice, yogurt and coffee is
included.
The charming country hotel
Guilhaume d’Orange in St.-Guilhem-le-Désert (2, avenue Guilhaume d’Orange; 33-4-67-60-38-56;
guilhaumedorange.com) has 11 rooms, starting at 72 euros. Its restaurant,
La Table d’Aurore, is open every day and offers, for a very reasonable 33.50 euros, a four-course meal with an aperitif.
A version of this article appears in print on
March 1, 2015, on page TR10 of the New York edition with the headline: Seeing Beyond Family Ties in Montpellier.
‘Woman at Her Toilette’, 1875/80, by Berthe Morisot
