Things to do in Montpellier

Neighborhood · City centre

The huge oval square the whole city funnels through, and behind it the shield-shaped medieval old town of narrow lanes and hôtels particuliers.

Local tip: The Comédie itself is where you meet people; the good bit is behind it. Walk rue de l'Aiguillerie and rue du Bras de Fer at nine in the evening, and look for the courtyard doors of the seventeenth-century mansions left open — several are visible from the street and almost no visitor looks up.

Landmark · West of the Écusson

A formal terrace above the city ending in a water tower, fed by an eighteenth-century aqueduct that marches off across the valley on two tiers of arches.

Local tip: Go at sunset, when you can see the Cévennes on one side and, on a clear winter day, the Pic du Canigou in the Pyrenees on the other. The flea market runs under the aqueduct arches on Saturday and Sunday mornings and is where locals actually furnish flats.

Nature · Beside the medical faculty

France's oldest botanical garden, founded in 1593 for the medical school, still a working teaching collection rather than a landscaped park.

Local tip: Free, shaded, and half-empty on a weekday morning. The orangery and the tangled upper terraces are the parts people miss; the medical students treat it as a reading room, which tells you how quiet it is.

Nature · 10–15 km south

The city's beaches, reached across a belt of salt lagoons full of flamingos, on a coast that is essentially a sandbar.

Local tip: Bus 131 from Étang de l'Or runs to Palavas and it is free with the Pass Gratuité, so a beach afternoon costs nothing. Go to Carnon or the Petit Travers rather than Palavas centre if you want space, and cycle the lagoon path — it is flat, separated from the road, and one of the genuinely great commutes in France.

Culture · Esplanade Charles-de-Gaulle

A very serious collection for a city this size — Courbet, Delacroix, Bazille and a Soulages room the artist helped design.

Local tip: Bazille was from Montpellier and the museum has the best holding of him anywhere, which is the reason to go rather than the big names. Check the free-admission days before buying; the permanent collection is free on the first Sunday of the month.

Nature · 45 km north-west, in the Hérault gorges

A Romanesque abbey village wedged in a limestone gorge, beside a medieval bridge over a river of astonishing green water.

Local tip: Everyone swims at the Pont du Diable and it is packed by eleven in July. Drive fifteen minutes further up the gorge past Saint-Jean-de-Fos and there are unnamed pools with nobody in them. Go on a weekday and start early — the shuttle car park fills before the village does.