What We’ve Learned About…France

We’ve halfway through Switzerland! The past couple of weeks while walking, we’ve been reflecting on the good and bad and just plain interesting things we’ve learned, seen, and experienced about French customs and culture. We’ve traveled through 3 departments: Hauts-de-France, Grand Est, and Bourgogne-Franch-Comté, and we’ve spent lots of time in the countryside, which we’ve loved. Esther’s baby French has improved to the point where she can converse quite well with dogs, cats, horses, and cows, and Adam finally feels like he can fully express himself in French.

Here’s a list, in no particular order, of things we’ve learned:

• Pas-de-Calais is very much like New Hampshire, but the houses are made of stone or brick with slate tile roofs. We felt like we were walking through old farming or mill towns in New England.
• EU financed environmental remediation projects have turned several post industrial hellscapes into beautiful attractions that bring people outdoors. For instance, the mining slag heaps are now city walking trails, the Nazi bunkers are bat sanctuaries, giant pit mines are now forest plantations, and former light railways are bike trails.
• Andouillette sausage is most certainly an acquired taste and we have not and will not acquire it.
• We love the French custom of eating cheese after dinner and before dessert. It’s beautiful. No notes.
• In a number of places we’ve stayed, in both England and France, the sink faucet is far too close to the edge of the basin and you can’t get your hands underneath it. In England particularly, the hot and cold taps are separate and they don’t mix, so you wash with either burning hot or freezing cold water. There is no in between.
• Speaking of bathrooms: toilets are usually in their own small room, and the sink and the shower are in their own room. This is only bad when there is no sink in the toilet room and you have to open a door to then go wash your hands after using the toilet.
• You can get an espresso almost anywhere, but people typically do not get it to go and coffees larger than an espresso are rare. Esther has accepted this and has learned to drink her espresso black. Adam still yearns for a proper mocha latte.
• Almost every business, except in larger cities like Reims and Besançon, will be open from 9:30 or 10am until 12 or 12:30pm, and then will open again from 1:30 or 2 until 8:00pm. In smaller cities or large towns, restaurants are open from 11:45 or 12 until 2 or 2:30pm, and then again from 6:30 or 7pm until 9 or 10pm. We learned this the hard way in Laon, when we arrived at 2:30pm and only one restaurant was open all afternoon (it was absolutely delicious Chinese food). Culture seems to favor employees over customers, potentially in a very healthy way.
• Most modern French homes have metal roll-down shutters on the exterior. These can be used in combination with curtains or blinds, but they also block out almost all light which is absolutely delightful since it stays light out until 10pm and gets light out around 5am. However, they don’t look good on the outside. We’ve stayed in one gîte that had traditional wooden shutters that were functional. We’ve seen a number of homes with wood shutters, particularly in Franche-Comté and especially as we approached the Swiss border. The wooden shutters are functional and used to block light and views in.
• We have only seen one business with screens on their windows. Otherwise, there are no window screens. It’s perfectly normal to have flys in the restaurant or room. We did, however, once have a bird accidentally fly into the gîte. It was more shocked than we were and it quickly flew out.
• Dogs are allowed in almost every restaurant or cafe!! We love it so much.
• As far as we can tell, almost every window is a casement window. Many of them are tilt-turn casements, which means they can open either on the side or at the top.
• Most French people, especially in rural areas, are incredibly friendly, open, and kind. We have experienced some of the most amazing acts of kindness and thoughtfulness on this trip and we feel incredibly blessed.

We really love France. It has so many quirks and charms, the people are lovely, and the food has been amazing. We’re looking forward to coming back someday soon to explore some more!