The first thing to say is that it's a very big country! This is stating the obvious, but you don't realise just how big it is until you drive from one end to the other. If you think England is a country full of history, France has
even more. There are so many amazing castles, chateaux, cathedrals, abbeys, Roman ruins, quaint little half-timbered villages, towns like Cahors with whole streets full of medieval houses - they put places like York in the shade! The history is
very complicated, too, with all those weird religious conflicts like the Albigensian Crusades and the Wars of Religion. There are a vast number of churches and villages dedicated to an array of obscure saints. St Gildas, St Privat, St Aquilin,
St Enimie, St Satur, St Amadour, St Cirq - who are they? Then there's St Pompon, patron saint of wooly hats; St Gimer, patron saint of doddery old men; and as for St Poncy!?
The French have some strange hygiene hang-ups.
They prefer the hole-in-the-ground, squatting type of toilet because they think they are more hygienic than sit-on loos. When they do have the sit-on type, which is luckily widespread nowadays, there are often no seats, "for reasons of hygiene."
They also think that swimming shorts are unhygienic so they are banned in most swimming pools - it's Speedos only, chaps. And yet it's still common to see Frenchmen peeing at the side of the road or up an alley. Don't they think that's unhygienic
too?!
Like the English, the French love dogs, especially small, ugly, yappy ones. However, the concept of the pooper scooper has yet to catch on, so even in historic sites like Carcassonne or Mont-St-Michel you have to watch where
you tread.
But despite all that we've really enjoyed France. The food and wine are excellent and usually cheaper than in the UK, the scenery is amazingly varied, the roads are not as congested as ours, the people are friendly
and surprisingly tolerant when we try out our rusty school French!
1. French motorways/autoroutes are very good but have fewer service areas than we do. However, they have frequent "aires", usually a large parking area well off the road, surrounded with greenery, with picnic tables and a toilet. The latter is usually of the "continental" or squatting type, but if anyone hates using these (like I do) there is usually a disabled toilet, which is a normal sit-on type. Lots of motor-caravanners use these aires for free overnight stops, although you do hear tales of occasional thefts from the vans while the occupants are asleep.
2. Although many autoroutes are toll roads and can be quite expensive, we found it worth paying when towing a caravan. There are few places to stop with a large outfit on ordinary roads. This isn't a problem with a car or medium-size campervan, but with a large caravan we found the only viable places for a break were the motorway services.
3. Don't forget, if you ask for "un cafe" you get a small cup of black coffee. If, like me, you don't like your coffee black, ask for "un cafe au lait" or "un cafe creme". I found these varied enormously. Sometimes it was made with a lot of hot milk and resembled a latte, sometimes it was a cup of black coffee with a jug of milk on the side. It was always good coffee, though!
4. Every supermarket we used required a one-euro coin to release the trolley, so keep one handy in the car. They all seem to have abolished carrier bags so take your own, or fork out two euros for a canvas "bag for life".
5. Contrary to our expectations there is a huge range of convenience foods in the supermarkets, which is a godsend to self-caterers. But it can still be hard to find fresh milk (as opposed to longlife). There are also far more fast-food restaurants than you would expect in a country devoted to gourmet food. As well as the ubiquitous MacDonalds there are plenty of pizza and kebab places. However, many small cafes and restaurants still cook everything from scratch and you can still get excellent and cheap set meals, especially off the tourist trail.