Explore Montpellier

The Place de la Comédie is the main square of central Montpellier, a pedestrian space of about 230 by 50 metres laid out where the town walls once stood. It is named after the Opéra Comédie theatre on its south-west side, and at its centre stands the Fountain of the Three Graces, an 18th-century work by Étienne Dantoine now shown as a copy.

Montpellier Cathedral, dedicated to Saint Peter, began in 1364 as the chapel of the Saint-Benoît monastery founded by Pope Urban V and became a cathedral in 1536. Its Gothic west front has a massive porch resting on two tall cylindrical pillars, which gives it the look of a fortress; the choir was rebuilt and enlarged in the 19th century.

The Promenade du Peyrou is a raised royal esplanade on the western edge of Montpellier's old town, laid out from 1689 and approached through a triumphal arch of 1691. At its centre stands an equestrian statue of Louis XIV, the present one dating from 1838; at the far end a columned water tower marks the end of the 18th-century Saint-Clément aqueduct.

The Jardin des Plantes de Montpellier is France's oldest botanical garden, founded in 1593 by letters patent of King Henri IV under the botanist Pierre Richer de Belleval. Run by the University of Montpellier, its 4.5 hectares hold about 2,700 plant species, an orangery completed in 1804, the Martins greenhouse of 1860, an English garden and a lotus pool.