Montpellier: The South, the Sun, and a Rolls Royce

The World Traveller Series — Entry No. 5

by Brett Hayhoe

Some places you visit once, take your photographs, and file neatly away in memory. Montpellier is not one of those places. I have been there three times, each for a different reason, and each time it gave me something entirely different in return.

The first visit was a site inspection — the necessary but unglamorous business of confirming that a city can host a major international Pride conference. Montpellier could. Tick. Moving on.

The second brought me back for the InterPride AGM, where, among the usual business of an organisation that follows the same agenda regardless of which beautiful city it finds itself in, I was re-elected as President for a second term. A significant moment, even if the meeting room looked much like every other meeting room I have ever sat in.

It was the third visit that I will carry with me forever.

I had been invited back to Montpellier as their International Guest for Pride — an honour that is as meaningful as it sounds. The city that had welcomed me as a delegate now wanted me as a guest, and I was not about to say no. What I hadn’t anticipated was that my best friend in the world, Alan, would turn that trip into one of the great adventures of my travelling life.

THE SOUTH IS DIFFERENT

Let us be clear about something that travel brochures tend to gloss over: the South of France is not France for tourists. Paris performs graciously for visitors — it knows it is being watched, and it obliges. The South does not particularly care if you are impressed. This is where French people go on their holidays, and they would prefer, gently but firmly, that you meet them on their own terms. A little French goes a long way. No French goes nowhere at all.

Alan has spent every summer since childhood with his cousins in the South. He is not French, but he speaks, reads and writes the language fluently — which, down here, is less a courtesy than a survival skill. With Alan beside me, doors opened, menus made sense, and locals softened in the way they only do when they feel respected rather than invaded.

And the scenery. The scenery is simply stunning — dramatic, sun-baked and utterly spectacular in a way that makes you understand, on a cellular level, why the French come here every year and have no desire to go anywhere else.

ONE DAY, ONE DESTINATION

Alan had his cousin’s car for one day. One day, one destination. He was generous enough to let me choose. I chose Monaco.

What followed was one of the great accidental road trips of my travelling life. Alan’s GPS, apparently harbouring its own agenda, delivered us without warning into the heart of Nice — a city that was emphatically not on our itinerary, and which Alan greeted with a short series of words I shall not reproduce here. Attempting to escape, the GPS then directed us up into the hills surrounding the city, along a road that could most charitably be described as optimistic — barely a car’s width, with vehicles somehow squeezing past each other in both directions, sheer drops nearby, and absolutely nowhere to turn around. We eventually pulled into a stranger’s driveway, regrouped, coasted to the bottom of the hill, turned right where every sign said left, and finally — finally — found ourselves pointing toward Monaco.

We had accidentally seen Nice. Nice had not been consulted about this arrangement.

The Palace, when we arrived, was quietly underwhelming — one of those landmarks that looms so large in imagination that the reality cannot quite match it. But the medieval village constructed around it is something else entirely: intimate, ancient, and beautiful in the way that only genuinely old places can be. We wandered, we looked, we appreciated.

We were waiting to cross a road below the Palace when the police arrived — fast, purposeful, suddenly everywhere. And then, moving at a stately and entirely unhurried pace in rather sharp contrast, came a Rolls Royce. The number plates told the story before anything else could. Prince Rainier, passing within feet of where we stood.

Alan turned to me with the expression of a man who has known me long enough to understand exactly what was happening.

“Well,” he said, more or less, “you’re going to be unbearable now. You’ve been a matter of feet from royalty.“

As a committed monarchist and royalist, I can confirm: it made the entire trip worthwhile.

THE FRIENDS WHO MAKE A PLACE

But if Monaco gave me a moment, Montpellier gave me something deeper — connection.

The Chair of Montpellier Pride, Vincent, is a dear friend. He and his husband made history as the first same-sex male couple to marry in France — a ceremony conducted under armed guard, because the authorities genuinely feared for their safety. They stood at that altar anyway, and in doing so, changed what was possible for countless people who came after them.

When you march in Pride, it is easy to feel the joy and forget the cost. Vincent is a reminder that for some people, the cost was very real, and very recent, and they paid it with extraordinary courage. The fact that he is also — and I say this with enormous affection — spectacularly vain, and will almost certainly be delighted to find himself in these pages, only makes him more loveable.

The South of France does not bend to meet you. You must go to it — learn a little French, accept that the roads may be terrifying, the GPS untrustworthy, and the Palace slightly less grand than imagined. Find a friend who knows the place. Let them drive.

Go anyway. It is absolutely worth it.

THE SUMMARY

Where: Montpellier, South of France — with excursions to Monaco, Nice, Salon, and the surrounding hills
When: Three visits across multiple years; the International Guest trip is the heart of this entry
Why it matters: The South of France on its own terms — authentic, demanding, and breathtakingly beautiful; the honour of being invited back as International Guest for Montpellier Pride; and a Rolls Royce at a pedestrian crossing that a certain royalist will never stop talking about
Don’t miss: The medieval village surrounding Monaco’s Palace; the hilltop villages of the surrounding region; Montpellier’s old town; any road that the GPS is not suggesting
The vibe: Warm, sun-drenched, a little unpredictable — the France the French keep for themselves
Who was there: Alan, a borrowed car, a GPS with ambitions, Prince Rainier, and a history-making friend named Vincent

The World Traveller Series is published in Q Magazine. Entry No. 6 — London, Pride and Palaces — is coming soon.