Alternative Tourist Guide to France

Planning to visit France? Get a guidebook, learn some French, and prepare for a fabulous holiday. France is the most-visited country in the world, and for good reason – the countryside is beautiful and the people are friendly. The guidebooks won't mention many idiosyncratic aspects of France which, discovered over the course of many trips there, I feel compelled to mention to any prospective visitor.

French Geography

France has many categories of geographical divisions. An understanding is essential to your tourist planning, most especially interaction with tourism offices.

First, and biggest are the regions; they consist of departments, devolving into communes. Kind of like provinces, counties and municipalities. Just to add to the mix there are also pays - communal regions – without defined borders.

Tourist offices serve different categories, and which one you encounter is a matter of chance. An Office de Tourisme can be very insular and unable to supply you with information for another region which may be just a kilometre away.

To make things even more interesting, you may often be asked by a host “Quelle pays?” asking you which country you come from. Their type of pays is not your type of pays.

French Food

Baguette – without a daily baguette, life is impossible. Should you wish to find the boulangerie in any town, simply find any local carrying their baguette and trace their steps backwards. 
Some quieter parts of the country, however, may only be served by the mobile boulanger. She will drive through the town and hoot loudly just behind you, causing you to crash your bicycle in fright. 
When you have recovered, follow the van at high speed because it may be your only chance to buy bread that day. 
 

Cheese – The French take cheese very seriously. Anecdotally, there is a fromage for every day of the year in France. The cheese aisle in the supermarché offers an extensive smelly variety: no soapy or rubbery orange blocks for a Frenchman, thank you. 
Battling to choose? Taste the popular camembert called 'Coeur du Lion' – the 'Heart of the Lion'. Try to consume this delicious, value-for-money cheese in one day, because the smell, once opened... well, just think of something that rhymes with heart. 

 

Coffee, tea or chocolate? - At breakfast, why settle for an ordinary beverage when you will be offered a steaming bowl of hot chocolate. The truly decadent dip their croissants into their chocolat. 
If soggy bread isn't for you, fear not - there will be a formidable array of jams on the table. Your hostess will ensure she tells you if they are home-made, as artisanal products are prized in France.
NB. In French these are confitures. Don't make the mistake of Americans (who call their jam preserves) of asking for preservatifs – indeed, in French these are not jams but condoms.

French Life

Opening hours – Visits to shops and attractions alike require forward planning. Lunchtime (closed) spans two hours at least. On Sundays, about 99% of France (except the boulangerie) is closed. In the countryside, this used to also apply to Mondays. We soon learnt to carry emergency food supplies, after one sad Monday lunchtime eating dry baguette and leftover squashed nougat extracted from the bottom of my bicycle pannier in the parking lot of the umpteenth closed supermarket we tried. 
Indeed, it often seemed that remote chateaux and museums were only open on the third Thursday of every month, between 3pm and 4pm. This may account for us not visiting many.
Things are changing, slowly, and some smaller supermarkets open on Sunday mornings. It is most convenient, but also shows how French traditions are slowly changing.

Pets – the French love dogs. Most accommodation establishments accept pets, for a small surcharge. You can buy a ticket to take your dog on the train. Some cyclists take their dogs for a spin in a pet carrier.  
This is all because French dogs are more poetic than English-speaking mutts; they don't woof, they ouarf.

The Language

If you wish to travel independently, learn some French. The most important word for any traveller is Bonjour – essential to politely starting any new interaction, and without which you will be considered rude.

Just before you think you are better at French than you actually are because some French words resemble English, they both have Latin roots but the spin is different. To ask is demander in French – much more polite than the word suggests in English. Preserves and preservatifs are an aforementioned excellent example. 
 

The phrase books won't include many indispensable French words:

Poubelle – where you deposit your trash, and perhaps why France is relatively litter-free: it's more inviting to throw it in la poubelle instead of an ugly-sounding rubbish bin.

Scotch – What your French host will eventually determine you need after about half an hour of dictionary-searching and descriptive hand signals, trying to ask for some sticky-tape.

Frotter – generally meaning friction or rubbing. The word frotteur – more double meaning here - has a negative connotation in English, but who could resist one in France – a machine that froths your milk for cappuccino.

Trottoir – the pavement. Take care if a sign warns there is no frotter on the trottoir – you could slip and meet with an accident.

Things we love about France

People – who are friendly, helpful and more easygoing than their European neighbours. They have excellent good road manners towards cyclists. The Gallic shrug is always accompanied by a smile.

Tourist offices – France values their visitors and is very well populated with tourist offices. You will be offered local tourist maps and helped to find accommodation or directed to a supermarket or just about anything.

Flowers – in springtime, flowers abound in every aspect of public and private outdoor life. Roses spill over stone walls in gardens, local councils ensure the flower boxes all over town are bursting with colour. Even in the countryside, you pass abundant fields of poppies and wild flowers. France makes so much effort with their flowers that towns compete for “Ville Fleurie” awards, and we get to enjoy them too.

Things we hate about France

Bolster – a long, hard, sausage-like pillow, found in traditional accommodation establishments, for which there will be night-long wrestling for dominance between the occupants of a double bed. The winner: always the bolster.

Noisy scooters – Many nights in towns we were jolted awake by the 120-decibel drone of a passing unsilenced scooter. We often debate writing to Hollande to ask why he doesn't pass a law banning the removal of the silencer.

Price of icecream – French icecream, which has many exotic flavours such as coffee and coconut, is an expensive treat. As soon as one crosses the border into neighbouring Germany, the price of icecream is halved. One more mystery of the European Union.

More things we love about France: everything else.We can't wait to go back!