Montpellier has no Roman layer — it was founded around 985 CE, centuries after its neighbours. Its past is medieval trade, medicine and religion instead: a ritual bath under a shop, an anatomy theatre, and the ruined palace of the Kings of Majorca.
Built in 1364 as the chapel of the Saint-Benoît monastery, its porch rests on two conical pillars 4.5m wide, unique in France. Sacked by Protestants in 1567 and rebuilt in the 1600s. Open daily 09:00–12:00 and 14:30–19:00.
A 12th-century Jewish ritual bath hidden beneath 1 rue de la Barralerie, among the best preserved in Europe, with a barrel-vaulted stair down to spring-fed water. Access only on an Office de Tourisme guided tour, booked ahead.
The largest surviving tower of the medieval Commune Clôture ramparts, capped in 1741 with an astronomical observatory for the Royal Society of Sciences. The walls once carried 25 towers; only this one and the Tour des Pins still stand.
The 17th-century aristocratic terrace above the old town, with its unicorn fountain and a view straight to the cathedral. The nearby Hôtel de Varennes hides Romanesque columns and 14th-century Gothic vaults in its ground-floor halls.
Built in 1757 with a bequest from François Gigot de Lapeyronie, surgeon to Louis XV. Its domed anatomical theatre let students watch dissections from tiered galleries. Now the chamber of commerce; interior by guided visit only.
Neo-Gothic church completed in 1868 on the spot where Saint Roch, the plague healer born in Montpellier around 1350, was baptised. Pilgrims walking the Camino still collect their stamp at the door. Open roughly 09:30–18:00.
The 1874 mansion of a Montpellier banking family, preserved exactly as they furnished it: Second Empire salons, a winter garden, porcelain and silver. It is now the decorative arts wing of the Musée Fabre, seen by guided visit.
Ricardo Bofill's 1979 reply to Montpellier's classical past: an entire district of concrete Corinthian columns and golden-ratio squares, raised on former army land under mayor Georges Frêche. Late afternoon light suits it best.
The oldest of Montpellier's folies, the country houses built by rich 18th-century merchants. Étienne de Flaugergues bought the land in 1696; the Flemish tapestries and the vaulted stone staircase are original to the house.
Under Place Jean Jaurès lie the foundations of Notre-Dame des Tables, the pilgrimage church that made medieval Montpellier rich and was destroyed in the Wars of Religion in 1567. The crypt now holds a compact city history museum.
An 11th-century fortified cathedral on a sandbar 12km south, seat of the bishops of Maguelone until 1536 and razed on Richelieu's orders in 1633 apart from the church itself. Reached on foot or by the little tourist train.
The Gothic window tracery on this small square is all that survives of the palace of the Kings of Majorca, who held Montpellier until Jacques III sold the city to France in 1349. The hall behind now shows contemporary art for free.