Montpellier and La Grande Motte

After being in the countryside for so long, the small city of Montpellier felt very cosmopolitan. We ate at very hippie vegetarian restaurant with posters of yogis on the walls. We figured it was time to eat some vegetables instead of our usual fare of duck and charcuterie. 

We were looking forward to heading to the beach after lunch but got into a very stressful situation when our gps led us down the wrong way on a one way street. Repeat: the street had one lane open, and we were heading onto oncoming traffic. It is usually a two way street, but there was some kind of construction happening, so our lane was blocked off with cones and cement blocks. With traffic coming towards us, we had to squeeze our car in between two cement blocks, as a bus driver passed by us and told us sternly that we were not allowed to go that way. By that point, our car was stuck between the cement blocks. Leonard had to go out to push them out of the way so that we could get out of there, and we sped all the way down the street going the wrong way (small roads in France = no way to make a three point turn) until we reached the end of the block. Phew! We then drove for an extra hour around the city because he refused to go back in there, since the GPS kept trying to tell us to return to that street, and the street signs within the city were useless to us.

After all that stress, we were happy to arrive at La Grande Motte, a French resort town. It is characterized by its strange 1970's buildings, which are supposed to be futuristic but feel more dated. We had a great time relaxing there. We had originally planned on spending the day driving around the Cevennes again, visiting more caves and mountain views, but our beach day provided us with a much needed rest. It's a lot of fun playing in the waves.