Musée Fabre
Montpellier's Musée Fabre holds one of the finest collections of European painting outside Paris — yet it remains blissfully uncrowded, letting you stand alone in front of a Courbet or a Delacroix without the shuffling queues of a capital-city gallery. It is, quite simply, one of the great underrated art museums in France.
The Collection
The permanent collection spans the 16th to 20th centuries and is particularly strong in French 19th-century painting: Gustave Courbet's monumental 'Bonjour Monsieur Courbet' hangs here alongside Delacroix's 'Femmes d'Alger dans leur appartement' — two paintings that belong in any serious art-lover's lifetime list.
The Flemish and Dutch rooms hold surprises too: a fine Rubens, several Teniers, and a collection of Italian Renaissance works donated by the museum's founder, François Xavier Fabre, who spent decades collecting in Florence. The breadth is genuinely impressive for a city of Montpellier's size.
The Building
The museum occupies a series of interconnected 18th-century hôtels particuliers that were expanded and modernised in a 2007 renovation, adding a sleek contemporary wing that houses temporary exhibitions without disrupting the historic rooms. The inner courtyard is a lovely spot to pause between galleries.
The ground-floor decorative arts rooms — tapestries, faïence, furniture — are often skipped by visitors in a hurry, but they contain some of the most beautiful objects in the building, including a set of Aubusson tapestries that are in extraordinary condition.
Visiting Practically
The museum is a five-minute walk from Place de la Comédie on Esplanade Charles-de-Gaulle, making it trivially easy to combine with a morning on the square. Allow at least two hours; three if you want to do justice to the temporary exhibitions.
On the first Sunday of each month, entry is free — a well-kept local secret that sees the museum fill slightly but never uncomfortably. Weekday mornings are the quietest time overall.
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