***”Authentic France Travel Tips” are posted every Tuesday and give ideas for savvy travellers who want to experience the authentic side of France.
***”Authentic France Travel Tips” are posted every Tuesday and give ideas for savvy travellers who want to experience the authentic side of France.
In France, the entire country follows extreme sailing races with religious fervour, such as the Vendée Globe where sailors have to make a solitary, unassisted lap of the world without any stops.
And no, in case you’re wondering, I didn’t experience some kind of mental and physical transcendence as a result of these hardships, or established a dialogue with the divine.
It sucked.
Ideally I would like to run three times a week, but in fact I only get out two times, sometimes only one time. That means that the most I have run so far is 9km. And I still run laughably slowly – so slowly that some people actually walk faster than I run.
Besides, I still want that crazed gleam in my eye too…not to mention the wine they serve at the 9th kilometre rest stop.
***Frenchitude Fridays (French + Attitude = Frenchitude) give ideas for injecting a bit of frenchness into your life, whether you live in Savigny or Savannah.
Real bread has to be bought fresh on a daily basis and includes only yeast, water, flour, and salt as ingredients. If it doesn’t go stale within 24 hours it is not considered bread in France.
French people will travel far and wide to find the best daily baguette. A local tip for anyone coming here to our little valley in Burgundy; we buy our daily baguettes from the little hole-in-the-wall bakery in the nearby village of Comblanchien. Go, buy, taste, and you will discover why this makes total sense.
The first solid food a French baby eats is always a stump of baguette – commonly referred to as a quignon de pain in local patois.
When I was at Villers-la-Faye’s annual Bastille Day village picnic last July with a five month old teething Clem, all of the village grandmothers kept ripping up the baguettes on the picnic tables and shoving quignons in her little hands, insisting it would be just the thing for her gums.
Turns out they were right, although I was too freaked out by the prospect of her choking (my choking paranoia is a whole other story) to give Clem her first quignon until she was close to eleven months.
She is piercing molars now, and gnawing on a quignon really does seem to help.
Clem naturally loves the taste of bread. She refers to it as an “ah-toe” (gateau) which is a high compliment indeed. She calls only her very favorite foods “ah-toes“, although unfortunately this list still includes clumps of dirt off the floor.
Anyway, that pesky dirt issue aside, as you can see from the photo above, Clem’s love affair with good bread has begun.
**Frenchitude Fridays (French + Attitude = Frenchitude) give ideas for injecting a bit of frenchness into your life, whether you live in Cahors or the Carolinas.
The French movie industry is booming, and has been for some time.
Many people go on about how American culture is submerging all other cultures, but French movies are concrete proof that this is not always the case.
I love French movies; they are unpredictable, fresh, and regardless of the subject matter exude a quintessential Frenchness (or Frenchitude, if you will).
Most French people I know here in Burgundy go to see just as many, or more, French films than American films. There is a misconception outside of France that French cinema is still as intellectual and experimental as in the days of The New Wave. I think that particular period gave French movies the reputation of being fist-gnawingly boring that they are still having a hard time shaking decades later.
In fact, the majority of French films being produced are comedies, or at least dramas with a comic bent.
The latest huge French film success, “Bienvenue Chez les Cht’is” which is a hilarious play on the clash of regional identities between Northern and Southern France, was produced by a famous French stand-up comedian, Danny Boon. It has since been optioned by Will Smith who is making a US remake called “Welcome to the Sticks.” Thankfully, French cinema is no longer about watching a person sleep on screen in real time.
If you are planning a trip to France, or even if you are not, there is no more enjoyable way to immerse yourself in French culture than by watching French movies. To see my favorite picks, along with my reviews, just click here.
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