| We spent a very hot fortnight during the summer of 2003 in the company of our friends Andy and Tracey who have bought gites just North of the Dronne Valley in the Dordogne near Nanteuil Auriac de Bourzac. They were faultless hosts and we really felt part of the family.
Like many parts of rural France, this is very picturesque
and undeveloped. The British have moved in in force, (thus it has
become known as Dordogneshire)
in search of the low-stress French rural existence that doesn't
really exist unless you are fortified by City bonuses and the UK/France
property price differential.
Running gites is hard work and no mistake, it's not an easy option. All have pools and most are owned by Brits who have downshifted and are disappearing in to the trans-European culture that pervades all of Europe except, er... Britain, actually. I prophesise 2nd generation ex-Brits becoming true Europeans, with relaxed, classless attitudes and complex facial hair.
The French have a different attitude to danger than the Brits and Americans: they accept that danger exists, they post warnings, but they keep a perspective on it. For example, I saw some boys playing on a weir in the Dronne. Now there were signs saying it was dangerous, and no one would argue it wasn't, but the water levels were low and within reason the worst that could happen was one of them would fall, bump his head and be rescued by his mates. In Britain, the Police would have stopped them in a heartbeat. Such a shame, no wonder our kids are growing up with a skewed perception of danger.
One hot night the neighbours, Ali and Anna, originally from Perth and also now running gites, came over and we had a great barbecue listening to Grandma Helen (82, blind, plays golf all over the world, takes her Guide dog on the plane with her... definitely not your average Granny) playing her accordion. It felt bizarre, to be sitting there in the dark looking up at the stars and listening to accordion music from the 19th Century and earlier whilst packets of 21st Century Internet data passed over our heads through the telephone line. It gave a real sense of historical perspective.
The French love their booze. The entire country is dedicated to the growing and enjoyment of alcohol. Children are encouraged to drink in moderation from an early age - what a pleasant change from the Draconian American laws preventing social drinking under the age of 21. No wonder America has an alcohol problem. France has over-imbibers as all countries do, but you don't see the alcohol-fuelled violence you see in the UK and America brought on by binge drinking, an inevitable result of over-tight alcohol laws.
I especially enjoyed sitting in French cafés
doing a Paul McCartney, i.e. "Café
on the Left Bank, Ordinary wine, touching all the girls with your
eyes...." (from the London Town album - hear it once, hum
it all day, you have been warned...).
Driving through the French countryside we discovered "Pastis-soaked radio": an FM station seemingly designed entirely to be French café muzak. All accordion music and Edith Piaf-style vocals, every few tracks a drunken DJ would drone in a monotone something about "la plume de ma tante" for a few seconds before the Pastis took effect once more and the accordions took over, his voice disappearing, like the Titanic, in to the noise floor.
Despite increasingly desperate campaigns by the Health Service, most French still smoke heavily, and Gauloise smoke still stains the ceilings of the public buildings. It's interesting that the further from London and New York you go, the higher the likelihood that people will smoke. The exception here is California (but then isn't California always an exception?). French wiring is, to put it bluntly, lethal. Inconsistent conductor and plug sizes, very little appliance earthing and large loads plugged in to very small sockets make for "interesting" wiring.
French plumbing is a nightmare. They use 9 different pipe diameters at random, many of their pipes are unsupported over long distances, their boilers often use the pipes as supports. Ugh... |
| Having driven a lot in France, I have been giving considerable thought to exactly why their road accident statistics are worse than those of the UK (and they're only 20% worse, despite what the UK national newspapers "carnage on the French roads" campaigns would have you believe....). The French, like the Americans, are not a mechanical nation and they take very little care of their cars. The equivalent of the MOT test ocurs only every 2 years, in order to gain insurance cover that is then displayed in the windscreen (good idea, that), thus the average French vehicle is in a worse mechanical condition than it's counterpart in the UK.
The roads are inconsistently designed: a "sharp bend" sign may signify a 70mph bend or a 35mph bend; bends on a particular road will be of wildly inconsistent radii; no cats eyes are used making night driving a guessing game; road-centre markings are vague and inconsistent making overtaking decisions unnecessarily dangerous; the road surfaces are appalling: ruts, potholes, repairs, bad road edges, sunken manholes abound; and roundabouts are cambered outwards not inwards as in the UK, making a slide more likely. Most dangerously, bends on even major roads are very sharp, and back roads are very narrow, often to the point where a quick diversion on to the verge is necessary when a car approaches in the opposite direction.
The taxation system means that traditionally cars have been taxed by "Fiscal horsepower", making small or "large-but-underpowered" the order of the day. Thus a French overtaking manoeuvre can take an extended period and tiny cars are driven beyond their safe limits. The attitude to drink-driving approximates to that in England in the 1960s. Driving home from the café after 8 pastis is acceptable, truck drivers routinely drink a bottle of red wine with their lunch. Need I say more, other than "blow in 'ze bag, Monsieur"... However, the average driver is good and well-disciplined: there is none of the lane-hogging that blights UK roads. Occasionally they do drive fast, but more usually they drive safely and responsibly. So, to improve the French accident rate you need
to make the signage and bend radii consistent, improve the road
surfaces and breathalyse every truck driver at 2pm. Not rocket science.
We rented a FIAT Stilo, which was something of a mixed blessing. I don't normally do car reveiews but..... Reasons why you should buy
a FIAT Stilo: Reasons why you should not buy
a FIAT Stilo:
|
During World War II, when the Germans occupied
France with the assistance of the Petain
administration (known as the Vichy Government), the English promoted
a very effective "thorn in the side" Resistance
movement in the sparsely populated French countryside, supplied
by covert Lysander
and Hudson
flights.
Visiting the village today you are left with an
impression of great sadness and emptiness, with some surprises.
The village is known to military historians the world over, and is often quoted (especially in the "World at War" series) as an example of the brutality of the Nazi occupation. But how many villages in Bosnia and Uganda, Vietnam and Zimbabwe have, unremarked, suffered the same fate but with no memorials, no tourist centre, no implorations to "Remenber", and no retribution upon the perpetrators? Like Hurricane Isabel, we only choose to care about 1st World problems...
Oradour sur Glane is a powerful memorial not just to the inhumanities of the Nazis but to Man's inhumanity to Man, and is as relevant now as it was 50 years ago. |
We went to France on the EuroStar.
It's a perfect reflection of the differing attitudes of France
and the UK to train travel. The ticketing arrangements are 21st Century:
turn up, insert your electronically-stamped ticket, and go.
The trains promise high speed and short journey
times: in practice they spend 10 minutes going in entirely the
wrong direction before spending a further hour trundling through
the back yards of South London like chained leopards forced to
parade through the streets, yearning for the Serengeti and some
decent warm meat with that special red gravy that spills all over
your lips when you bite down.
Only once in to the Channel Tunnel (clunks and
whirrs from the pantograph release mechanisms) is 1st gear finally
left behind, and only when it has emerged from the tunnel in to
the train-friendly French rail system is the beast finally let
off it's lead. A subdued growl emerges from the bogies and the
countryside picks up it's heels and moves backwards - surely it
can't be the carriages that are moving? Only when manoeuvring
along the corridors does any sensation of speed become apparent:
random adjustments in the direction of the Permanent Way are amplified
by inertia into embarrassing and often painful staggerings in
the narrow companionways.
The Internet refused to let us change at Lille, so we changed at Paris instead, which meant a sweaty trip on the Metro, then on to (by the skin of our teeth) the TGV to Angouleme. It went very fast and very smoothly, it left on time, it arrived on time. Connex, look no further than here for your direction.
Having travelled the SNCF way, we returned to
the Gare du Nord, went through first French then English passport
checks before boarding the train. The only possible conclusion is that the airlines must be paying the UK Government to screw up the EuroStar at every turn. If I was the MD of EuroStar I would have given up the unequal struggle a long time ago.
The scenery in and around the Dronne valley is beautiful, especially in the hot summer. We toured a lot and went canoeing from Brantome (known as the Venice of the Dronne Valley), which was fun as we had to go down the weirs on wooden ramps (cue screams from the children, whoops from the parents) but hard work on the arms as it was about 15Km.
It's a beautiful area of France, and if Andy and Tracey get a proper pool for next summer, we'll go back and explore more. |
