Reflections on France

On our last day in Provence we returned to Les Baux, to get to the top of the chateau, and the wonderful views. This area has many things to recommend it that are hard to describe, call it the atmosphere; the smells, the colours, the sunlight and on this day even the wind, the Mistral from the north is not warm.

We are now in Corsica, having arrived in Bastia by ferry very early we drove up into the mountains near Corte.

This is, of course still part of France but the people are rather like the Cornish, they think of themselves differently so we will reflect on the mainland. People: have a reputation for being rude and unfriendly but with very few exceptions we did not find this to be the case. Perhaps because we can converse in French that makes a difference but our face to face experiences were most positive. Food: Hit and Miss, we saw the most wonderful selections of vegetables at the markets but where were they in the restaurants? We also got the impression that more stars on the front door indicated more hollandaise on the plate. We had some good meals and some average ones but the wine selection never let us down. Roads: The roads are amazing, at least 50 percent of them look like the tarmac was laid last week, so clean with perfect bright white lines, and roundabouts. Not those piddly little white circles like the UK, these are proper ones with curbs and nice plantings, sometimes there's even a sculpture or some 'art' in the middle, and there are thousands of them! Dogs: I'm sorry but this is where it all goes wrong: the dogs can go anywhere and the dogs 'go' anywhere. The sidewalks are disgusting, based on our experience it's better to walk in the street. The dogs go into bars and restaurants, they sleep on the chairs on the ferry and pee on the carpet. It's not on, absolutely the worst thing about France. " Mirrez Jacques, mon chien a fait une plus grande merde que votre chien, Allez Bruno." We managed a long walk up a rugged valley, as far as the link to the GR20 which is considered to be the hardest walk (20 days)in the world, we went far enough. As we look out of the hotel window through the pine trees and the last sun falls on the mountains beyond we can reflect that it's been quite a day.