Montreuil, France

By the 19th century, Montreuil was a sleepy medieval town on the coaching road from Calais to Paris. Famous writer Victor Hugo spent a brief stay here and was inspired to use it as the setting for his famous novel - "Les Miserables". 


Montreuil - pronounced as Mon-trey - (or something like that) LOL -- is known (of course for those who have read the novel) as being the setting for Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, and every year (July-August), a festival stages the play in the town (which I was not fortunate to see as we were only there for half day).  


The charming walled town of Montreuil is a perfect destination for a weekend getaway.  With its beautiful old houses and churches, its imposing ramparts and its cobbled streets (not to mention good restos) - it's very ideal for such romantics like Patrick and me.  A little trivia - or to quote Kuya Kim "kaunting kaalaman" - the first ramparts were built in the 9th century by the count of Ponthieu. In the reign of Louis XIV, Vauban strengthened and modernized the ramparts.  Victor Hugo spent only half day in this town on Sept 4, 1837, when he was on a voyage to the north with his mistress, and the town was immortalized by this great novelist when he decided to use it as the setting for Les Miserables.


The town ramparts are best appreciated by taking one of the walks around the town walls - which Patrick and I did.  We walked for I think a good 4 kilometers!  The views of the town and surrounding country is just awesome and the walk is all worth it!