To those who are interested,
The day stated early for me today (6:00) as I knew there was 35 kilometers between me and Montpellier, monday's planned destination. The old man sleeping in front of me woke up around the same time. We exited the dormitory together. As we started walking he explained to me that he was not planning on walking to Montpellier, but rather taking the train from Lunel, 6 kilometers down the road, straight to the metropolis. (Montpellier is a big-ass city compared to what i'm getting used to down here.) He said that the rout to Montpellier was uninteresting and next to the road so I agreed that it was a great idea and decided to travel with him. On our walk to the station, my comrade (I didn't retain his name) confessed to me that he was a pastry chef (or used to be) who was discussed by cakes. I thought this was odd, but nevertheless we reached the train station located in the disgusting town of Lunel as the train to Montpellier was taking off. Lunel was a town who's architecture was half 18th century stone buildings and half ultra modern design sidewalks and sculptures. Nothing fit. we waited for the next train for about an hour and a half and boarded it at 10:32. It was hugely demoralizing to see how fast it took us to get to Montpellier. A 10 hour hike of 32 kilometers on foot took the train 14 minutes. At the station in the city, we shook hands and parted ways. He was going to sleep in Montpellier, and I decided that, since it was so early, why not walk to Montarnaud and kill two birds with one stone. I hoped on a tram that would get me to the other side of the city. This proved to be quite hard; to enter a metropolitan area and then exit it walking. The tram took 2 Euros and 28 minutes to get me to the terminus Juvignac (a suburb of Montpellier). It was quite hard finding the GR653 out of Montpellier (I even called Zoe, who had google within her reach to locate me and guid me.) I finally found it after a man used his smart phone to show me the way. The hike to Montarnaud was about 5 hours. I got to the Maison du Pelerin at about 4:30. Montarnaud was the pretties village I had seen on the trip. It had a castle dominating the village on a hill. I was the only Pilgrim in the maison for about a half our, after which two Dutch hikers joined me. At dinner we talked politics! We discussed how France could be in big trouble now that M. Holland is president and about America not being the great power of the world anymore. They were quite judgmental considering the Dutch government is falling apart. I had cheese and salami for dinner.
Tomorrow I intend to walk back to Montpellier and catch a train back to Paris. It's amazing how much I crave a recognizable city...
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