The sheer physical diversity
of
France would be hard to
exhaust in a lifetime of
visits. The landscapes range
from the fretted coasts of
Brittany to the limestone
hills of Provence, the
canyons of the Pyrenees and
the half-moon bays of
Corsica, from the lushly
wooded valleys of the
Dordogne to the glaciated
peaks of the Alps. Each
region
looks and feels different,
has its own style of
architecture, its
characteristic food and
often its own patois or
dialect. Though the French
word
pays is the term
for a whole country, local
people frequently refer to
their own immediate vicinity
as
mon pays - my
country - and to a person
from another town as a
foreigner. This strong sense
of regional identity, often
expressed in the form of
active separatist movements,
as in Brittany and Corsica,
has persisted over centuries
in the teeth o centralized
administrative control from
Paris.
Perhaps the most striking
feature of the French countryside
is the sense of space. There
are huge tracts of woodland
and undeveloped land without
a house in sight.
Industrialization came
relatively late, and the
country remains very rural.
Away from the main urban
centres, hundreds of towns
and villages have changed
only slowly and organically,
their old houses and streets
intact, as much a part of
the natural landscape as the
rivers, hills and fields.
The nation's legacy of
history and culture is so
widely dispersed across the
land that even if you were
to confine your traveling to
one particular region you
would still have a powerful
sense of the past without
having to seek out major
sights. With its wealth of
local detail, France is an
ideal country for dawdling;
there is always something to
catch the eye and gratify
the senses, whether you are
meandering down a lane,
picnicking by a slow, green
river, or sipping Pernod in
a village café. There is
also endless scope for all
kinds of outdoor
activities, from
walking, canoeing and
cycling to the more
expensive pleasures of
skiing and sailing.
If you need more than
urban stimuli to activate
the pleasure buds - clubs,
shops, fashion, movies,
music, hanging out with the
beautiful and famous - then
the great cities
provide them in abundance.
Paris, of course, is an
outstanding cultural centre,
with its stunting
contemporary buildings and
atmospheric back streets,
its art and its ethnic
diversity. And the great
provincial cities like Lille
and Lyon, Bordeaux,
Toulouse, Marseille and Nice
vie with the capital and
each other, like the
city-states of old, for
prestige in the arts,
ascendancy in sport and
innovation in urban
transport.
For a thousand years and
more, France has been at the
cutting edge of European
development, and the
legacy of this wealth,
energy and experience is
everywhere evident in the
astonishing variety of
things to see: from the
Gothic cathedrals of the
north to the Romanesque
churches of the centre and
west, the châteaux of the
Loire, the Roman monuments
of the south, the ruined
castles of the English and
the Cathars and the
Dordogne's prehistoric
cave-paintings. If not all
the legacy is so tangible -
the literature, music and
ideas of the 1789
Revolution, for example -
much has been recuperated
and illustrated in museums
and galleries across the
nation, from colonial
history to fishing
techniques, aeroplane design
to textiles, migrant
shepherds to manicure,
battlefields and coalmines.
Many of the museums
are models of clarity and
modern design. Among those
that the French do best are
museums devoted to local
arts, crafts and customs
like the Musée National des
Arts et Traditions
Populaires in Paris and the
Musée Dauphinois in
Grenoble. But inevitably
first place must go to the
fabulous collections of fine
art, many of which are in Paris,
for the simple reason that
the city has nurtured so
many of the finest creative
artists of the last hundred
years, both French, Monet
and Matisse for example, and
foreign, such as Picasso and
Van Gogh.
If you are quite
untroubled by a need to
improve your mind in the
contemplation of old stones
and works of art, France is
equally well endowed to
satisfy to satisfy the
grosser appetites. The
French have made a high art
of daily life: eating,
drinking, dressing, moving
and simply being. The Pleasures
of the palate run from
the simplest picnic of
crusty baguette, ham and
cheese washed down by an
inexpensive red wine through
what must be the most
elaborate takeaway food in
the world, available from
practically every
charcuterie; such basis
regional dishes as cassoulet;
the liver-destroying riches
of Périgord and Burgundy
cuisine; the fruits of the
sea; extravagant pastries
and ice-cream cakes; to the
trance-inducing refinements
- and prices - of the great
chefs. And there are wines
to match, at all prices, and
not just feel inadequate in
the face of all this choice,
never be afraid to ask
advice, for most French
people are true devotees,
ever ready to explain the
arcane mysteries to the
uninitiated.
