Why go
The Tour des Pins and Tour de la Babotte are useful reminders that today's open routes once met a walled town. Around Saint-Pierre Cathedral and the historic medical faculty, the city's reputation for learning becomes more than an abstract date in a history book.
The full story
Montpellier is first mentioned in a document from 985. The Guilhem lords brought together two settlements and enclosed them with a castle and walls. Trade links across the Mediterranean helped the town grow in the twelfth century, alongside a notable culture of learning. In 1180 William VIII allowed medicine to be taught freely here. The schools of law and medicine developed in the following decades, and the medical tradition became one of Montpellier's defining identities. In 1204 Montpellier passed to Peter II of Aragon through his marriage to Marie of Montpellier. The same period brought a charter confirming local freedoms and a system of elected consuls. The city walls changed over time, but the Tour des Pins and Tour de la Babotte still give a physical clue to the medieval town's limits. Walk between them and the medical quarter to connect the political, commercial and scholarly strands of this history.