Life in France

Wine and delights

When we moved to Carcassonne 6 years ago it seemed as if we didn’t have a free weekend. There was always something to do. Naturally there was the city itself to discover but also food and wine fairs, art shows, craft sales, concerts, exhibits, tours, and walks all right on our doorstep to enjoy. As we developed friendships the invitations came for drinks, dinners, and outings of all sorts. That continued for the next few years until Covid arrived and as in the rest of the world everything stopped. During the first of the 3 lockdowns that France went through, even our outdoor fresh fruits and vegetables market was closed. Fortunately most of the restrictions have recently been lifted and the Lions Club Carcassonne Remparts took advantage last weekend of our newfound freedom to hold a Salon de Vins et Délices (Wine & Delights Show) with 20 exhibitors split evenly between wineries and artisanal food vendors. We went three times!

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Bob9 Comments
Life in France

It’s OK or nothing

There’s a book called Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands that’s directed primarily to US citizens who want to conduct business overseas while avoiding cultural mistakes. As the title suggests, it addresses differences including  greetings, negotiating methods, and business practices. There’s even advice on what gifts to bring to a social occasion or in the case of France, what to avoid, such as roses or chrysanthemums since they are generally associated with “love” and “death”, respectively. Since Bill and I are retired, in our social interactions we aren’t really bound by the strict business rules suggested in the book even though we find these comparisons fascinating. Along those lines, when an article appeared in the online newspaper The Local, I was anxious to read all about “The biggest culture shocks foreign students face in France.”

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Bob6 Comments
Life in France

The happiest place in France

Disneyland is trademarked as “the happiest place on earth” and we would certainly agree that it’s fun. But what about the happiest place in France? To find that out took the combined efforts of a research institute, a think-tank, a national news source, and the railroad to interview residents of all 12 regions in mainland France. Over a month-long period 10,000 people were asked their opinion of their daily lives and about where they lived. To get an expanded view beyond the local area some of the 100 questions dealt with social ties, cohesiveness, and the country’s vision. The top finding was that 78% of the respondents declared themselves “happy” and within that, 38% were “very happy”. Satisfaction with the work/life balance was at 70% while general optimism about one’s own future ranked at 57%. And there’s more encouraging news.

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Bob6 Comments
Life in France

Which big French city?

No, we’re not about to move. Even after 6 years, Carcassonne still has what we were looking for when we were deciding on a place to live and it continues to get better. On our “must-have” spreadsheet that put 16 cities to the test, we found everything here except a water view, and that may have been a wise choice after all. (Another blog post will provide insight into that rising question.) Having lived in four of the biggest cities in the US—including numbers 2 and 3— we wanted our retirement location to have more of a village feel. While countless villages do indeed exist with colorful flowers cascading from window boxes outside blue shuttered windows in honey-colored stone houses set between cobble-stoned streets and babbling brooks, most of them are in rural locations (like this featured photo of Le Bec-Hellouin–sorry, not our house) requiring the one thing that we did not want: a car. We are grateful to have found a smaller city where we can walk to everything we need within a few minutes or ride a bus (15 € per year) anywhere else in town. However, lots of people are still looking for the buzz that you can only get in huge population centers so when I saw an article where the residents of this country’s 20 largest cities talk about what makes their home “best” I wanted to see why and who would come out on top.

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Bob4 Comments
Life in France

Honey, I’m home

Before “buy local” became a household phrase, people had long been doing exactly that in 10,000 open-air or covered marchés across France. We shop at our own market every Saturday morning as much for the fresh produce as for the environment—the smells, the bright colors, the excitement—and we always run into people we know. We see the same vendors week after week so now we have a rapport with them that allows for joking, a few words in English from the truly brave, and even a bonus handful of fruit or veg when they are feeling generous, as they always are. In addition to filling our refrigerator, we can also stock our shelves with eggs, cheese, nuts, olives, and bread, or pick up a rotisserie chicken for lunch. Much of what we see on display comes from the farms that encircle Carcassonne and now I see that there’s even honey from beehives that we pass when we walk along the river to get to the market. It doesn’t get much more local than that!

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Bob9 Comments
Life in France, Travel in France & beyond

St.-Jean-de-Luz and Pau

We were expecting to take today’s trip two years ago and I was going to call the blog post “Walking to Spain”. We would have gotten off the train at the last station in France, Hendaye, walked across the La Bidassoa river bridge to take a photo of the Bienvenido a España sign and then returned to France to continue our journey. The arrival of Covid and all of its associated travel restrictions forced a postponement and a rearrangement of our schedule but it all worked out fine. We still took a southbound train from Bayonne but exited 2 stops before the border (featured photo above) to spend the afternoon where Louis XIV, the Sun King, married his Spanish bride and future Queen of France. The next morning it was time to discover where the Sun King’s grandfather had been born 100 km (62 miles) to the east in the city of Pau.

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Bob12 Comments
Life in France

Basking in Basque Country

We live between a river and a canal and we can easily walk to either one but our house doesn’t have a water view. When we go out of town, therefore, we like to stay in a vacation rental or hotel that gives us that vista we are missing at home. Since the city of Bayonne is located at the confluence of the Nive and Adour rivers and if you follow that latter one a little further to the west you’ll reach the Atlantic Ocean where the beaches of Biarritz sit a few kilometers south, it was going to be easy enough to find a suitable view. That was especially true for this trip since going to a summer resort in the winter meant that there was little competition for space. Because it offered better train connections we chose Bayonne from where we were able to take day trips and still get back each evening to peer out at the passing boats below.

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Bob5 Comments