Settling in Montpellier

Hello everyone,

I would like to share my experience with you about the beautiful city of Montpellier. I feel very lucky to have lived and studied viticulture and oenology for the past 5 years there so I am excited for you to experience what this city has to offer. I am going to start writing about settling in: student apartments, health and house insurance, financial help for housing, banking, phone company, and transportation.

You can read about my personal experience in another post. I will write about: general expectations when living in Montpellier, school life, party life, to do, places to go to eat, drink and study.

Settling in

Student apartment

I enjoyed living in the student residences from the C. R. O. U. S. because it is already furnished and you have a bathroom and a kitchenette with a refrigerator. I lived in Vert Bois II for 3 years. I was lucky to end up in the new buildings so I never had any complaints besides the thin walls so you can hear your surroundings. It’s great if you are buddies with your neighbor and communicate through “Morse” code, that’s what I did for a year. But honestly it isn’t a problem. I have rarely called the residential guards for noise complaint.

They all have: wifi, parking for cars and bikes, washing machines, dryers, a place to hang out, and they all are very luminous rooms.

I also lived in the residence Les Cigales from SupAgro. It was equally awesome for me.

Below are the pictures of my room in Les Cigales:

Expect the rent to cost around 300 euros/month and the room to have about 20m² of surface.

Health and house insurance

The school will want civil liability and your residence will want you to have house insurance. If you’re not covered from your original country and your bank doesn’t offer them, I recommend signing up at the MEP. They are very nice, helpful, and they will sign you up for both insurance. I chose that company because of the various plans that they offer (depending on your needs and budget) and they also have health insurance plans for when you go to other countries of the EU and outside the EU, called ExtraPass. You will need a French bank account to get reimbursed but it is not needed if you get ExtraPass.

Know that in France there are 2 parts of the health insurance. You first have to get a “sécurité sociale” which reimburse a fraction of the medical fees then you have the “complémentaire” which reimburse another fraction of the medical fees. Having both will allow reimbursing about 100% of the fees. A doctor visit will cost 23 euros.

Financial help for housing

If you are living in the same apartment for more than 2 – 3 months, I recommend signing up at the CAF. This will help with paying rent. Depending on your financial situation, at best, you will end up paying for a little more than half the cost of rent (ex: rent is 300 euros/month, you will end up paying 180 euros/month, at best).

If you want to sign up, first you need to fill out a form online that estimates your rights for this financial help (see link below). If it accepts your situation, you will be given a list of documents that needs to be gathered and you will have to print some documents to fill out. The total will have to be either posted or brought to the office. I recommend to hand it in at the office to speed up the process and to make sure that nothing is missing. Before you leave, ask for the estimate time of file processing, so that you are aware of how long it might take.

Depending on your nationality, the money will either be transferred to your French bank account or it will directly be given to your residence and they will proceed with subtracting the money out of your rent.

Know that any administration in France is long and annoying, so, to get the full benefits, you should start the CAF application within the first couple of months that you move into your apartment. Also, be prepared for long lines at the office and for the workers to only speak French, so bring a French speaker if you need them.

If you need any help with this process, I recommend you asking the front desk at your residence or your coordinator from your school. Usually, the front desk people are very helpful with this.

Filling out the form: CAF to get a valuation of your rights.

Banking

If you need to open an account in France, see if your school is affiliated with a bank because they might have advantages such as not paying any fees. You will need a French bank account for health insurance reimbursements. If you come from the USA, I recommend checking out the sapphire chase card. It doesn’t have any currency exchange fees and you get points for your purchases. Those points allow you to receive price reduction for car rentals, hotels, flights, etc. I have never had any issues with it.

If you are looking into picking a bank, here are the common companies: Credit Agricole, BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, LCL, La Banque Postale,...

France in general accepts any common cards such as mastercards, visa etc. You shouldn’t have any problems if you have a foreign card.

Phone company

If you are looking for a phone company, I fully recommend using Free. There are no contracts and you can pay by credit card or by bank transfer. You can expect to pay about 20 euros/month for unlimited calls, text, 4G internet and you can call the EU, DOM and USA.

There is a store next to the Polygone mall.

Transportation

Montpellier is a great city if you don’t own a car. The city has put together a transportation system with buses and trams, called TAM. You can trust this system unless there are protests, strikes or bad weather conditions (frost or flooding), in which case, the bus or tram will either be late or not running. Other then that, the city is very easy to get around whatever type of transportation you chose to use.

If you plan on using the TAM on a daily basis for a year, I recommend you going to the TAM office right by the train station. They will hook you up with a yearly card that cost around 200 euros. They will ask for a picture but if you don’t have one, they will take one for you.

If you are like me, and plan on taking the TAM occasionally, I recommend the 10 passes for 10 euros. I think that it is the best bang for your buck and it doesn’t have an expiration date. They also have many other plans that will correspond to your needs and budget. You can buy the non yearly ticket at the booth by the tram stop.

Know that 1 transportation ticket works for both buses and trams and it is valid within a 1 hour spend. Be aware that there are guards that control the buses and trams once in a while on a daily basis, so make sure to use the card to not get fined. Though, I never saw them at night, so I never felt the need to use my ticket after 8pm on trams and some buses, depending on if the bus driver seemed to care or not.

On a side note, when using the bus, you might notice people saying “Bonjour/Bonsoir” to the driver when they enter. When they leave, they look back at the rear view mirror and say “Merci, bonne journée/ bonne soirée/ au revoir”. I recommend following this courtesy as I believe the drivers appreciate the politeness.

You can definitely use a bike in this city. There aren’t that many hills to climb and the weather allows it! You can even bike to the beach! It’s about 11km away from the center. You can either buy a used one or use the ones from the TAM system. If you own a bike, make sure to lock it up safely. It’s a bit common to have something stolen from it (seat, wheels, etc).

When it comes to taking a taxi, I personally find them expensive. Once I took it from La Comédie to Vert Bois and it cost 20 euros. I personally wouldn’t recommend using them unless you have a full car or that you don’t have any other choice.

If you need to go a long distance and that you are a fan of carpooling like me, check out Blablacar. I used it often as a driver. I think it is safe as I never had any problems as a girl. The website has a grading system and comment section that allows you to know more about the driver. What I really love about them is that you end up in a car full of other Montpellier students studying various subjects.