After a couple days around the lake we hit the road again bound for Montpellier 300kms away, and passed a few interesting sights along the way.

Lavender (apparently). We passed several fields like this in the area.

First stop was the mountain village of Gordes. Again recommended by somebody for its little shops and awesome views from 600 metres above sea level. Gordes covers an area of 50 square-kilometres and is home to around 2,000 (so your gossip is mostly safe).

Oh good a knife to go with the holder from the Riez markets. I'll fit right into London now!

From Gordes we continued on to the walled city of Avignon, home to 90,000 and surrounded by 4.3kms of thick stone wall. We had a good wander around here but there wasn't much of interest. There was a cycle race going on but that's about it.

Reminds me of York with its wall.

Not far out of Avignon is this big thing - the Pont du Gard! The Pont du Gard is an aqueduct constructed by the Roman Empire around the 1st century AD (so it's been here a while!). 1,000 people worked for five years to build this monster, with the objective being to bring water to the city of Nimes via a 50km long aqueduct.

Built on three levels, the Pont is 49 metres high, and the longest level is 275 metres long.

This is the water conduit on the upper level (a bit dry these days).

From the Pont du Gard we continued through to Montpellier, and this was our unfortunate accommodation for the night - camping in a trailer park full of trailer trash in probably the roughest, dodgiest part of the city in an area called Lattes, where groups of youths stare at you intently as you drive past. Unfortunately, it was the only campsite I could find in or near Montpellier.

We had McDonalds for dinner and slept in the car, and here's why: The shot on the right is not my own nor is it in Montpellier, but try to imagine this bridge underpass three times the size and in 9pm darkness with no street lighting, no houses or buildings nearby, the road wide enough only for a single car and with two blind corners (as in the shot above), and the underpass wall absolutely covered in graffiti. This image is what we very unexpectedly came across while following my GPS back towards the camp site after refuelling the car and while trying to find somewhere for dinner. Thankfully it was a Sunday night and there was nobody around, but had it been a Friday or Saturday night I expect we would've interrupted a bunch of yobs (the kind that like to congregate under bridges) adding to their work on the wall and God only knows what could've happened. With the campsite / trailer park in an area such as this I was in no way interested in pitching a tent nor driving around to find a half-decent restaurant where we probably would've been mugged or stabbed anyway. Macca's was brightly lit and looked safe enough, and the car has locks on the doors hehe.

We made it through the night and checked out central Montpellier the next morning. Central Montpellier itself is quite a cool area, even nice one might say, but don't be deceived - the city on the whole appeared to me to be nothing more than a dump for France's low life.

This park looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book hehe.

"What the fuck?!"

These two shots sum it up. The city of Montpellier is home to 250,000 and covers 60 square-kilometres, and yet there is no mention of it whatsoever in Lonely Planet's "Western Europe". While researching for this trip that seemed really weird to me but now I think I know why. Moral of the story: if it's big but it ain't in Lonely Planet - don't go there! One thing I failed to notice before we came is Montpellier is sister cities with my old friend Glasgow - the anus of Scotland and the murder capital of Europe. If I'd known that earlier there's no way we'd have come!