Well, I've now been to two Montpelliers. I spent about fifteen minutes in Montpellier, Vermont, when I got lost trying to find Sugarbush. It was pretty, but not overwhelming. Montpellier, France, is pretty and French, but not overwhelming. This Montpellier is a lively town, full of college students, very walkable and speckled with cafes and plazas.

Thing I just noticed about these "quaint" European cities is that there's nowhere to park. Streets are narrow and buildings have no driveways, no garages. Makes sense for a city built before cars existed. Most early residents walked everywhere, which also explains why American cities are so different. Downtowns never developed because everything was car-friendly, and the newer the city, the more that's the case. Boston is old enough that it has a real downtown, and driving is a nightmare. New York somehow manages to make things work, even packed with cars, though I'm sure it has a lower ratio of cars-per-person than, for example, L.A.

Another thing about France, the language sucks. Imagine a frog trying to

hock a looghy and failing: that's what French sounds like to me. Trying to speak it is torture. I don't understand why French exists. With Spanish and Italian, I can see how they may have evolved over time from Latin, but French pronunciation is so far removed that I have to think there was some alien influence.

I have become very good at saying "bonjour." So I do, I say "bonjour." Then nothing else for a couple seconds, savoring the moment when the person behind the counter thinks I speak French. The usual response is a torrent of verbiage that flies right past me. Then I launch into my "parley-voo on-glaze?" routine, shattering the illusion of fluency.

Some of the greatest discoveries are made accidentally. Penicillin. The Americas. Fire. For me personally, it was Avignon, France.

No European journey is complete without at some point getting on the wrong train and ending up miles from the intended destination. The scenario is familiar: the departures board in Montpellier listed one platform, but due to some curiously French mixup, the train arrived on another one, and some other train came where the first one should have been. Of course, there was an announcement in rapid French, so all but one of the passengers knew about the swap. And so instead of going to Nice as intended, I ended up in Avignon, 200 miles in the other direction.

So there I was, in Avignon. 10:30 PM, so my only option was to spend the night and take the first Nice train in the morning. I checked into the hotel right by the station and thought, "Welp, might as well look around." I took a shower and was off.

Picture it: the first thing you notice as you leave the station is a big medieval city wall, with an ancient-looking gate. A quick glance at the hotel-provided map shows that the wall encircles the entire centre-ville. "Well, that's nice," you think, passing through the gate. Entering the old town center, you notice pretty historic architecture and cobblestone streets, and are thankful you took the easy hotel rather than trying to drag the wheeled case across the clackity-clack-bump-bump-tip-over.
The streets: softly lit, the populace: walking with Friday night's free and easy spirit. You think, "I kind of like this place."

Continuing on the main street some spires come into view over the roof tops. "Oh, look, must be a cathedral." Then you get closer, you enter a square, and you have to stop. You have to stop. You have to stop because you can't breathe. For there in front of you is the Palais des Papes and the Musee de Petite Palais, and one of the most beautiful squares in Europe. You have to stop because you can't breath because the haunting baritone tones of a man singing in French echo throughout the square. Originating where he stands, alone in the deserted center, and reverbrating off monumental walls, breathtaking walls.

After a moment you can fully enter the square, and with each step you are astounded anew at the place's beauty. From every angle you discover something new to marvel at. Beyond the sheer scale of the place is the quiet, peaceful simplicity. You notice the way the different sections, apparently built at different times, don't quite line up, don't quite match, but somehow form a whole that is in perfect harmony.

You find yourself wandering down a small side street – beautiful in its own simple way – then turning around with the intent of surprising yourself anew. It doesn't work, because your memory is too good, too fresh. But then, wait, unexpectedly it strikes you again. Maybe it's a reflection in a window pane, maybe a previously unviewed angle. This place, it continually surprises.

So that's how I discovered Avignon. I gotta get on the wrong train more often.

While staying in Nice, France, I took a train to Cannes for a day trip, just because, you know, I could; even though Nice is nice. Actually, Nice is not all that nice. A large chunk of the city is dug up and under construction, and it has some grungy-looking areas and people. It does have a pretty-looking park way up high on a hill that I never got around to checking out. Nice has a certain feel that seems to be common to all warm-weather seaside beach towns, like Miami Beach. The pink sidewalks packed with souvenir shops and bathing-suit displays and cafe tables. The crowds of pale tourists just arriving. The straggles of pink tourists just leaving. The smell of sunscreen (in the case of Nice, mixed with the stink of stale urine – this is France, after all). It has the same mix of scumminess and elegance that Miami Beach has, though maybe farther towards the scummy side.

The beach at Nice is gravel. Not pebbles, as I've seen it described, but big fist-sized rocks. And yet people go sit on it, flock to it even. I don't get it. Having lived in Miami, with its beautiful beaches and beautiful people, and Cape Ann, MA, which makes up for the lack of glamorous people with an even more gorgeous beach, it's hard to be impressed with this "French Riviera." I was hoping Cannes would correct this opinion.

Cannes is a slight improvement, in that it at least has a sandy beach. That's pretty much all it has of interest to me, though. It's a very chi-chi place, and is infested with fancy boutiques and five-star hotels. And of course it's the home of the famous film festival, so it has all the acoutrements of that: celebrity hand-prints, movie posters, and so on. The festival wasn't happening when I was there, but there was a car show, which was kind of interesting. Mostly Cannes was filled with overweight middle-aged men with their shirts unbuttoned halfway.