Saturday's the day for Montpellier's famous weekly flea market in the spacious Place du Peyrou, and this is the wonderful inexpensive tram from the northeastern suburb of Jacou (adjacent to Teyran) that's going to float us into the city centre at the Place de la Comédie. 28 December 2014.
Our stop at the Place de la Comédie, and the Opéra Comédie itself, built in 1855 to replace a number of predecessors destroyed by fire.
An awkward statue of the "Three Graces" from 1790, by someone named Étienne d'Antoine. The figure in black is not part of the ensemble.
Happy Design. We're on the main avenue to the northwest (shortly to become Rue Foch), towards the upper town around the Arc de Triomphe at the Porte du Peyrou.
The Court of Appeals, next to the . . .
The huge park of Peyrou, with its famous weekly flea market, looks distinctly underpopulated today.
At least Louis XIV is still here despite the cold.
This is the tasteful hexagonal, Corinthian-style Château d'Eau, or 'water tower', built in 1768 to distribute drinking water into the city from the aqueduct of St-Clément.
It stands at the high point in the city, and today the north wind is brutal.
Connecting to the Château d'Eau, this is the 17th century aqueduct of St-Clément, bringing fresh water into the city from the spring of St-Clément 14km away; after that, gravity took over and filled the fountains throughout the city.
The famous weekly flea market of Montpellier on the 28th of December. We'll come back in May.
Now it's back into the centre city; it's museum time.
Next stop, if we can find it, the Musée Fabre -- we're wending back downtown.
An Office du Tourisme would be a good thing now, with a free City Plan showing the hotspots.
Surely one of the hotspots: "Happy Hour 16h to 20h". Do they have free admission for the ladies at the play readings on Thursday nights?
A string of venerable cafés and restaurants along the northern side of the huge Place; the one on the far left is the McDonald's.
A seasonal tradition: what centre city doesn't have a temporary ice-skating rink for the holiday season?
Good grief! How elegantly modern.
Kristin would like to buy tickets for this afternoon's opera, and the tourism office has directed us to the fancy modern Corum convention centre at the far end of the esplanade. There was nobody home there, unfortunately.
But perhaps a little something along the way would hit the spot. We settled for the blessed aligot, always a favorite, a blend of puréed potatoes, tomme cheese, and garlic, from the Auvergne region. We could happily have stayed right here all day.
We've misplaced the Musée Fabre.
Bingo. The museum reopened in 2007 after massive restructuring running to €63 million, and it's fabulous. (The name Fabre, and its other forms Favre, Faivre, Fevre, Febre, etc., is the equivalent of the common English name Smith, 'ironworker'.) The first collection was donated by F.-X. Fabre, a Montpellier painter, in 1825, and big donations followed throughout the 19th century. The present building, a grand family home, was donated to the city in 1968, and modernizations were begun in 2001.
Perhaps the collection has weaknesses, but one among its many signal strengths is in Flemish and Dutch masters, which suits me very well.
And this vision of a village kermesse by David Teniers the Younger. What outdoor painting by Teniers doesn't include somebody leaning up against a wall having a wee?
Tenier's peasant scenes may include someone discreetly having a wee up against a wall, but this is much worse: Johannes Lingelbach's medicinal The Purgative Source (ca. 1650).
One collects pictures of Mary Magdalene paintings, who knows why? Church traditions about Mary have been confused and contradictory: was she one of the closest followers of Jesus, the one who first discovered his resurrection? Was she the 'prostitute' who washed his feet or whatever? Was she the 'woman taken in adultery', well-spring of the "Penitent Magdalene" tradition? Was she the apostle to whom Jesus gave the Special Secrets of God that he wouldn't even divulge to the Twelve male Disciples (as in the gnostic Gospel of Mary)? Was she married to Jesus? (cf. entertainingly and reliably, Bart Ehrman, Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene (2006)). This one's by the early 17th century Jacques Blanchard, presumably in the Penitent Magdalene tradition -- but very mild stuff against this Donatello.
Oh no, another Poor Saint Agatha, a perennial hagiographical favorite, martyred in Catania in about 251 and thence "the patron saint of breast cancer patients, martyrs, wet nurses, bell-founders, bakers, fire, earthquakes, and eruptions of Mount Etna". This from about 1630 by Anonymous.
This is Zubarán's version, about 1635.
Back out onto the Esplanade. Time's running out: we need to find this opera! We've been badly misled.
No points for the Tourist Office, but we've found the right place our-own-good-selves. It was at the Opera House. It's Kristin's treat (she's an opera enthusiast) and she's buying the tickets now, two and a half minutes before Curtains Up.
Bingo. The Opéra Orchestre national Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon has two venues: l’Opéra Berlioz / Le Corum in the fancy and from-the-outside uninspiring Corum centre (to which our Tourist Office friends sent us) and . . .
. . . here in L’Opéra Comédie, for the afternoon performance of Mozart's Idomeneo, re di Creta (1781), staged in 1950s dress on a fairly bare stage, successfully I thought.
Never having been to an opera before (except for Don Giovanni at the marionette theatre in Prague, which was great), I was positively inclined, despite its length -- luckily, the lyrics were shown in French on a screen above the stage, so the plot, if there was one, was only semi-perplexing.
The curtain call (no flash, but maybe a bit crude and déclassé anyway). Experienced opera-goers have trained themselves to retain their impressions in memory for the rest of their lives (I need my camera).
Luckily the No-Photo police missed me and we were able to sneak out without creating a scene.
One of us was mightily impressed by the grandeur and regality of the premises and is entirely unqualified to comment on the singing, etc.; our more experienced companion enjoyed the performance heartily and felt that the city needs to reassess the condition of the venue and make some commitments for the future.
Feedback and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative, . All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 2 February (World Wetlands Day) 2015.