Cycling from Montpellier to the Mediterranée – Hans on the Bike

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Montpellier was one of the cities we visited in France this year. It was not terribly high on our list, but as it has a direct T.G.V. connection with Paris, we choose the city as our last stop in the south of France. It is also close to a number of so called ‘étangs’, shallow pools of water, right behind the Mediterranean coast. Those muddy places attract a lot of birdlife. Montpellier is also reasonably flat, and that makes for nice cycling.

To be honest, we didn’t know anything about Montpellier. We didn’t know you could bike to the coast, we didn’t know about its proximity to Nîmes with its Roman temple and arena, we didn’t know about the étangs. But it after some reading, it looked like a place we could entertain ourselves for a few days, especially when you know there is still not a leave on the trees back home in Ottawa. Coincidentally, it so happened that a niece of ours was attending a wedding nearby and so we rented a slightly bigger space than usual for the three of us in an older neighbourhood with single family homes, a 30 minute stroll from the old city centre.

Free transit in Montpellier

A pleasant surprise was that transit is free in Montpellier, but alas, only for residents. Suckers like us have to buy a ticket via a QR code at the tram stop, but that requires a data package, which we, albeit tech savvy, don’t have abroad usually, because with a bit of planning wifi is sufficient for us. The last day of our stay, we needed a ticket to get to the T.G.V. train station south of the city. The local transit website referred us to one of the “60 vending locations in the city”, without providing a list of those points. 

Tickets at the tobacconist in Montpellier 

After a lot of hassle we found a nearby tobacco/newspaper shop that sells tram tickets. You can not buy tickets in advance though: as soon as you buy the ticket, the clock starts counting your minutes: you have an hour and a half to get to your destination. The tobacconist is closed around noon though and closed on holidays. I have no idea how you’d get a ticket on those days, although some of the vending locations have ticket machines. But in order to get there, you’ll need a transit ticket, which…enfin, you get the dilemma. My guess is that 95% of the transit users is local, so I highly doubt they pay fare inspectors to catch the odd Canadian on the tram who hasn’t paid. Law abiding as we are though, we did line up with a dozen seniors buying newspapers, lottery tickets and magazines at the tobacconist before it closed for lunch. 

A bike ride to the Mediterranean from Montpellier 

High on our list was bird watching in the étangs; we could combine that with cycling. To get to the étang, we rented three bikes downtown. Fortunately for us, the store has created a shiny brochure with a bike route to the shores of the river Lez which helped us navigating our way out of town. An interesting route for sure with a hodgepodge of cycling infrastructure: share the road, a separate bike track, part of a sidewalk, more separation and eventually a pedestrian and cycling bridge to get us to the left bank, where a pedestrian boulevard turns into a multi use pathway on a dike. Below are several types of infrastructure you will encounter in Montpellier’ centre.

Herons, Egrets and Storks

It took a few kilometers before we were out of town, passing a shiny new development with mid and high rise buildings in all kinds of shapes and the brand new city hall, with a large solar array mounted on one side. We were going underneath a highway and saw the T.G.V. tracks running high above us. A bit further south, leaving town, we saw herons and egrets in the river. Circling above us were several storks. We stopped at a small local nature education centre, closed unfortunately, but a friendly French couple (“I have been to Canada many times for work”) showed us the direction to a number of stork nests. All nests had fluffy white babies and the parents were flying in and out with food. A very cool sight.

Leaving the dike behind

Off we went again past a neighbourhood built around an artificial marina. The pathway leaves the dike here and squeezes by a parking lot and a roundabout.

Then the path runs along a rural road, with horse farms on our right hand and grasslands on our left, which slowly turn into ponds. Several cyclists stopped here and we learned there were probably a hundred flamingos foraging nearby. We could see them clearly with our binoculars. They are not as pink as the ones from the Dollar Store when they are standing in the water, but gorgeously pink when flying over the water. We counted ourselves lucky when we saw three ibis with their characteristic bills. Not a bird expert one bit, I associate ibis first with pharaohs and hieroglyphs. 

Palavas-Les-Flots

Now we gradually arrived at Palavas-Les-Flots. We crossed the Canal du Rhône à Sète that runs east-west through the étangs, which looks a bit weird: a canal with a dike and water on both sides. The Lez river has been turned into a canal too in this part of town.

We turned west along the canal, ignoring a sign that said cycling was not allowed, because everyone else ignored it too. This brought us on a dam, separating the canal from the étang. A long straight ride followed until we arrived at a the Cathédrale de Maguelone with a winery/forestry little area, built on an island, where we stopped at a bench and ate our sandwiches.

From there we biked along the Mediterranean on a long dead end road, so no speeding beach traffic. We cycled a few kilometers past nude beaches and saw a few very tanned bums. This road brought us back to the Palavas beaches and town centre eventually.

Woonerf

We explored Palavas for a bit and were reprimanded by a cop who said we were not allowed to bike on a certain stretch of the road. I explained in my best French that I saw a ‘woonerf’ (Wœnœrf) sign so I assumed we were allowed to bike. He mentioned that that is correct but that if the barriers are up you can’t bike. We had not noticed the barriers because we had come from a side street. All was OK.

The pedestrianised street, overlooking the end of the Lez canal with fishermen’s boat moored on both sides, is full of shops catering to tourists. We locked our bikes to a bike stand next to the police station and we convinced ourselves we really deserved a big gelato. The shop was kind enough to fill our water bottles too. Of course, we dipped our toes in the Mediterranean and then we biked home again. 

Tram and bike share

Montpellier also built a tram all the way to the coast to Étang de l’Or, Line 3, stopping just two kilometers from the beaches. Unfortunately, when free transit was introduced, it was no longer allowed to bring your bikes on the Montpellier tram system, however, foldable bikes can still travel with you, provided they are folded.

 Montpellier has a bike share system too, but I didn’t see that much evidence of it. It does have quite a number of privately owned e-scooters, more than I casually observed in other cities we visited. Montpellier is hillier than Bordeaux and Toulouse, so that may explain why. 

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