I’m always on the lookout for new places to explore whilst I’m learning French in Montpellier. Last weekend I took a break from going hard on my French immersion course for adults work over the weekend to show my mother around my home here in the south of France. She had been staying in a hotel in the historic centre of town and it made me realise what a beautiful area it was. I had spotted ‘Le Broc Café’ when I had been showing her the sights and it looked interesting and I thought I would give it a go. So, one evening after a day grafting at the Easy French Language School I called up Pierre-Luc who had been my ‘host-brother’ earlier in the year to see if he wanted to try it. I lived with him and his mother during my first French language stay in Montpellier and we have become very close friends.
We try and see each other at least once a week, he is hoping to do the next level of his accounting qualifications in Oxford or London where there are particularly reputable accounting firms. He needs to retake his English proficiency exam before he can do that though so we have been helping each other as much as we can with our respective languages. It’s been the perfect team-up; he is feeling more and more confident for his exam which is in July this year and I’m progressing much faster with my intensive French immersion course and I’m even considering taking the DALF exam later on in the year.
I’ve Been Learning French in Montpellier for 4 Months and Never Knew About It
The Broc Café also just happens to sit half-way between the house of my new French host family and Pierre’s house so we could both get there in just 10 mins. We also invited along a few of my friends who were staying at the Easy French School Residence which is also in the historic centre. It’s an amazing location and when I lived there I loved walking past the Arc de Triomphe every morning on my way to my French intensive course for adults. I was sad to leave but I wanted to live with a real French host family again and deepen my language skills.
We got to the Broc about half 7pm and were pleased to find out that we were just in time for happy hour which runs from 5-8pm. There were some great deals and already I could feel myself becoming very fond of the place, you could get a pint of blonde for €3.50 or even more interesting to me was that you could get a glass of wine, white or red for just €2! Throwing caution to the wind I order two of them in the same glass and that made a rather large drop of wine. There was loads of choice of drinks; particularly on the beer side of things and Pierre got himself a craft beer that was half price. The atmosphere was really cosy inside the café and there was lots of people eating what looked like decent food as well.
A couple of the Belgian guys from the residence came to join and the first thing they said to us after they got their drinks was that they couldn’t believe how cheap it was! We all agreed it was a nice place and it was hard to believe that it wasn’t that well known by the students of the Easy French School in Montpellier as it is so close to the residence. We didn’t stay long as we had to get up early for another day of intensive French lessons but we agreed we would be coming again, and soon!