In Spring our Fancy Turns to France

Forgive me, Italia. I have been unfaithful.

Almost. Sorta. Only above the waist. I didn't inhale. Really!

You were my first European love, but lately I've ... fooled around with France.

It's not your fault. Being too close can magnify minor faults. And then another country comes along and you see only the good.

France seemed well-organized after you felt chaotic. Her countryside is beautifully groomed, where much of yours is becoming messy. Her climate, terrain, and cuisine span broader ranges. Her history is tied more directly to my ancestors.

So I dallied with her, on five trips. And she enticed me (tastefully, of course) with her quiet language, her beautiful castles, her courteous drivers ... all her infinite variety.

But what of her heart and soul? Was she truly mine?

Alas, no.

For all her talk of deep and independent values, she seems to crave material wealth and status. What else could explain this:

French media have flooded the world press with glowing accounts of Montpellier. This fast-growing metropolis didn't exist in Roman times, but today is called "the most exciting city in southern France!"

What's the focus of this excitement? A gigantic shopping mall (with discounts even)! A sequence of socialist mayors promoted this quintessentially capitalist development.

"Come to Montpellier and shop your brains out. Bring dollars, pounds, or Euros; we run an equal opportunity bazaar." France has always been on the make, but it used to feel French doing it.

Even more disturbing is the city chosen in a poll of French citizens as the most desirable place to live. Toulouse. We thought it had all the charm of Cleveland (back when we lived there, in the early 60's). Downtown Toulouse is gray (I know, they call it the rose city for all the brick), dirty, hard to navigate even on foot, and smug.

We finally concluded that the reason so many French families would like to live there is that it has lots of high-paying jobs associated with its role as the design and assembly center for Airbus jetliners. Of course those jobs have all been filled, but they've created a ring of affluent suburbs around Toulouse while the city seems to fester within.

But what was it about "la France" that first seduced me? Mostly "surface" things. Like beauty ... in her countryside, I mean. To be blunt, Italia, you've gotten a bit tawdry with those necklaces of new but ugly factory and retail buildings strung along your country roads. France has them too, of course, but not quite so many and not quite so ubiquitous.

Then there's the "grandeur" which surrounds her state. Government in France seems characterized by beautifully-maintained black fences with perfectly-aligned gold spear points. Miles and miles of these surround every official building in Paris. When I think of Italian government (an oxymoron, perhaps), all I can see is Berlusconi calling his opposition "dickheads" [or coglioni, if you prefer the original Italian].

There is another, more intimate, attraction about France. She has better restrooms than you do. Even in the smallest restaurant in the most backwater village of the Languedoc, we almost always found genuine sit-right-down toilets, not those "Turkish" squat jobs that lurk even in some of Italy's biggest cities.

Then there's money. France is a cheaper date; it simply costs less to visit. Her food, wine, and lodging are better bargains than in (at least northern) Italy. Car rental is cheaper too.

Still, it would be hard not to love both of you. Joie de vivre is a French phrase, but it bubbles over in Italy. Italian food is fresher, and simpler cooking lets its flavors come through. But there is less variety than in France, even though her growing season is shorter.

Feasts for the eyes abound in both countries. Italy, your artistic leadership from Roman days to the Renaissance left a gorgeous legacy. Much of it is still in the churches and palazzi for which it was designed. France has glorious religious art AND was the cradle of a true visual revolution in the 19th century. The best of her treasures are now collected in well-run museums all over the country.

Why then am I ultimately a bit disappointed in France?

Is it her dangerous country roads, with deep ditches and no guardrails? Too many rotaries? It's difficult to drive more than a few kilometers in a straight line in France, because they are replacing simple road crossings with rond points everywhere and as fast as they can. But her roads are marked much better than in Italy, which helps compensate.

For a country with a very centralized government that extends into every aspect of life, France is surprisingly lax about protecting life and limb. We've seen almost no safety grips in French bathrooms, and getting in and out of deep, slippery tubs must be a major cause of death, especially among the elderly. And second-hand smoke is everywhere in France, whereas Italy's no-smoking laws have proved surprisingly effective. But that's not the big problem.

Is it thoughtlessness? Could be. For a country that emphasizes politeness (never enter a store without saying "bonjour" to the proprietor), France is remarkably unhelpful about the simplest aspects of just getting around. For example, having now returned rented cars at rail stations in Paris and Toulouse, I know there are very few signs telling you where to leave the car. Italy isn't much better, true, but the French seem to marvel when one couldn't figure it out. Yet, in the countryside, French road signs are much more comprehensive (and comprehensible) than Italian markings.

But none of these is cause for estrangement. What really scares me about France is how fast it seems to be adopting the worst of American culture! Surprised? I know, the rhetoric from France and about France paints a country that's different just to be contrary. But how else can I explain the fact that Montpellier has bet its future on a gigantic downtown shopping mall? And Toulouse, the "most desirable" place to live, is dirty, full of cars, short on pedestrian-only zones, and feels more like Youngstown than any French city should.

True, these are isolated points. Paris still seems the most livable city on earth and even the tiniest village can offer sweet peace somewhere under its spreading plane trees. But this trend to imitate the US has me worried.

You, Italy, are still your old chaotic, scatterbrained self. With little effective central government and only a short history of being a modern nation, you don't seem capable of being anything but Italian. Good for you. You've struck back at McDonald's with the Slow Food Movement. Starbucks may be all over Paris, but it's nowhere in Rome. And Siena still feels like only it can, just as every other Italian town has its unique flavor and its own pride.

In truth, I love something about each nation. The places we have most enjoyed in France are the areas closest to the Italian border, where the cultures mingle. Nice, our favorite non-Paris city, was once part of Italy.

For a while I thought I had lost my heart to France. But now I see what that would cost me, and I know I'll always come back to you, Italia.

If I don't get lost on your roads.

There's an old joke about the difference between Heaven and Hell. In the former, the English are the police, the Italians are the artists and the designers, the French are the cooks, and the Germans build everything.

In Hell, the roles flip to your worst nightmare.

I'm sitting in our rented apartment's living room. About an hour ago, I put a small load -- socks, briefs, one tee -- into the French-built washing machine under the kitchen counter. Once I deciphered the bewildering set of controls (there are at least 15 settings for the kind of wash and load you seek), I started her up and have listened since to an audio demonstration that would impress both of the sound-effects guys on Prairie Home Companion.

Apparently, ecology is paramount in this design. The front-loading tub never fills with water. Instead, about 3 inches seeps into the bottom. Then the tub rotates three or four slow turns and stands still. Pause. Rotates the other way three or four times. Pause. This continues for the first 20 minutes, and then the soapy water is pumped out. Following that have been a repeating series of new fresh-water fills, repeats of the slow rotations and pauses, high-speed spins, and general gurgling sounds.

This is all supposedly in aid of the environment. It seems that even so few suds (I've seen more on a glass of Budweiser) can't be unleashed on the local plumbing without endless dilution. When I think how the planet must be groaning under the foam belching from our high-capacity one-dial, three-cycle (Gentle, Normal, Extra -- 30 minutes start-to-finish) washer in Massachusetts, I'm deeply ashamed.

We're now at the 1 hour, 20 minutes mark. High-speed spin is underway with a turbine-like whine. Call CDG for clearance to land….

I'm still up listening to this silly symphony because I have to remove the clothing from the machine and drape each item over the elaborate folding rack in our bathroom. What doesn't fit gets arranged over the furniture. There is no dryer; "Everyone likes sun-dried clothes much better." (Never mind that a day of dependable sunlight is a low-probability item in most of Europe.)

I now understand why French lingerie (and even men's underwear ) is so skimpy. The smaller it is, the quicker it dries. Maybe those French engineers aren't so dumb.

Dateline: Couiza, Sunday, March 26, 2006

Saturday night, the 25th, was our last at the small B&B run in Calvisson by Corinne and Regis Burckel de Tell (they and their married last name are from northwestern France).

Our room was comfortable, if very rustic. No, I don't mean the bathroom (which was quite modern) but the worn stone floors, the stone slab spiral staircase, and the ancient wooden armoire that swallowed our clothes. Meals were served in an arched stone room; we had dinner there twice, and breakfast every day. Regis is a fine cook and uses wonderful ingredients, but after two nights we craved lighter fare.

Our stay and our breakfasts were brightened by a very pleasant couple from northwest London. Penny and Simon are a decade or so younger than we are. She bursts with life and interests; he is quieter, but with a wry wit that I envy. Meeting over the dinner and breakfast table, we always had lots to talk about -- whether our destinations for the day, or solving the problems of the world. Lively conversation with interesting people is, for us, one of the great attractions of staying in B&Bs.

Sunday morning checkout preceded the needle-threading exercise required to extract our Ford from Corinne's two-blocks-down-and-two-over garage. Roz and I eased out of Calvisson, found an open gas station at the edge of town, and set off under Emma-who-navigates' guidance. Destination Couiza: another small town about 200 kilometers to the west,

The ride was pleasant (light Sunday traffic with relatively few trucks) and we had wired up a way to play music from our iPod through the car's radio. The sweet twang of Alison Krause helped clear our sinuses, engorged by the different nasalities of attempted French.

Couiza is a flat town in a small valley amid steep hills. The Cadogan Guide calls it "gritty." The Salz river joins the Aude here, but with as little commotion as everything else in town.

Our ground-floor apartment is right on the main street, just where it crosses a bridge (rumbly when the trucks go by). The rooms are clean, spacious, fairly bright (at least during the day; Europe does not believe in high-wattage light bulbs), and include a full bath, kitchenette, and washing machine. (Photo is our little patio next to the bridge.)

The building is owned by a young British couple -- Allison and Martin -- who live nearby. However, they're in the process of selling it because they're attempting to cash in on the current Da Vinci Code craze. The next town over from Couiza is Rennes-le-Château, which has some alleged connections to the whole Jesus Christ / Mary Magdalene story, complete with fables about buried treasure from the Templars, the Cathars, the Pope, the Romans, or anyone else who might have dropped a drachma nearby over the last 2 millennia. Martin and Alli have written a "Da Vinci Code" game and want to give up the gite business to pursue this new line. You can see more about the gite and their game on their web site.

I just re-read the above, and it's pleasant enough, but dead boring. Fortunately, what we did next was the most fun of the trip so far. Hope you stayed awake this long….

"Fécos" rhymes with "say-coh"

Combine Mardi Gras with Halloween, stir in a Shriners' parade, and season with murky prehistoric origins that probably include human sacrifice. Accompany the whole mash-up with pretty darn good brass band music, and stretch it out over every Lenten weekend so each "guild" in town gets to show off for one Saturday and Sunday. That's a mild description of Fécos, which the nearby town of Limoux does every year. We went there after checking in to our apartment in Couiza on Sunday evening.

We got in a little late and missed the start. But it was easy to find the main square because the band echoed around the town.

Fecos observations are highly regimented. Each guild's team includes three parts. The Pierrots are dressed in matching-color clown suits, but there are three or four different full-head masks, all with surprised or knowing expressions. The Pierrots all wave five-foot-long flexible wands with color tassels on each end; mostly they do this in time with the music. They are also hung with shoulder bags full of confetti, which they dispense by the handful on each other and on spectators, who crowd in for the privilege.

Following this squad of 16 or 20 comes the band. Dressed in loose jackets and dented felt hats, they really do a job on the 3 or 4 songs they know. Bass drum, cymbals, and lots of brass carry the tune, with a few clarinets to soften the blow. They are all too busy playing to wave wands or throw anything.

The third part is the goudils. This is a very mixed group costumed as witches, soldiers, older persons, other clowns, and assorted oddballs. Some of them carry confetti and shorter wands.

Everyone bobs to the beat of the band, insults the spectators, and moves with a slow grace I haven't seen elsewhere. The procession starts in a corner of Limoux's town square, moves down one side(taking perhaps 30 minutes), steps into a café for refreshment, then forms up again at the next corner to march slowly along to the next café while waving their wands and throwing their share of the seven tons of confetti Fécos consumes each year.

It's at least as ridiculous as it sounds, but wonderful fun to experience. Within minutes, you're humming the tune and bouncing to the rhythm. I never saw so many Frenchmen almost smiling at once. By the end, you're crowding in with the kids, teenagers, families, and grandparents to get your share of confetti dusting, too. I even found some in my underpants that night!

Click here to share a little of the fun via a short video clip with sound. (You'll need QuickTime and a fast connection.)

Dateline: Calvisson, 24 and 25 March, 2006

Montpellier, largest city in Languedoc, must have a great PR consultant. Every guidebook oohs and aahs about how lively, stylish, and "up-to-the-minute" it is. If this is up-to-date, I'll take last week.

And it's the dirtiest city we've seen in France.

Long story short -- to us, Montpellier looked over-commercialized, under-cleaned, and on the make for the type of visitor (including French ones) who wants to spend their vacation dropping Euros in an underground shopping center.

All activity seems to revolve around the Place de la Comédie (a huge plaza lined with cafés) and the adjoining Polygone shopping center, which is like stacking three Burlington Malls and recessing the bottom two underground. But Burlington has nicer stuff; inside, Polygone feels more like one of those discount malls in North Conway, NH.

One good feature is that it's a no-smoking area (still rare in France). The procedure seems to be to have a smoke at one of the cafes, then plunge into Polygone for as long as you can stand it. Then you re-emerge and light up.

On Friday (24 March): the stores were full, the mall interior was crowded, and it was all very ordinary. We could have been in Sacramento or suburban Boston.

We decided to see the "new Montpellier" by taking a brief walk into Antigone. This is publicized as the most innovative residential area in all of Europe since WWII. Created by a Catalan architect, Antigone's inspiration was a very cleaned-up version of Greek architecture. Lots of classical forms, such as overhanging cornices. But these cornices overhang so far that they are actually held out from the top front of the buildings on struts.

There's much "purity of form" in the layout of its streets and plazas, too, but little of humanity. Everything is sterile and symmetrical. Around a circular open space with a fountain will be identical curved four-story residential buildings. (Photo was taken from Antigone, looking back toward the Polygone.)

I'm sure it all looked great before those pesky occupants moved in! But the south-facing buildings on the north curve of the plaza catch the sun all day in their big plate-glass windows. The dwellers have taken their own measures to control the heat and light, some by hanging blankets inside their windows. A few pink or light green blankets scattered inside those big evenly-spaced windows sure spoil any chance for Platonic elegance.

Gliding in and out of the circular plaza is a blue tram train, which circulates through Antigone and nearby parts of the city. It appears to be one of two ways to enter this model community. The other, which seems be much more used, is by escalator from the back door of the Galeries Lafayette department store in the Polygone mall. Imagine having to walk through Macy's every day as part of your commute!

The rest of Montpellier has a few handsome buildings, a triumphal arch celebrating King Louis the Whatever's victories, and a famous university with a top-notch medical school. But there was little pedestrian traffic and even less street-cleaning. Gutters were full of scrap paper; sidewalks of dog poop.

After an OK but smoky lunch inside a café, we retrieved our car from the garage under the Place de la Comédie and headed north toward Calvisson and our B&B. But we decided to make one more stop; the village of Sommières, which shows exactly what's wrong with overplanned communities such as Antigone. It's not one of the "most beautiful villages of France," but it has adapted itself to the needs of its inhabitants over 15 centuries. It doesn't matter what people hang in their windows, because all the windows are different! Even the satellite dish antennas are starting to look like part of the stonework.

It seems odd to me (and would once have affronted my leftist leanings) that the Socialist mayors who drove the rebuilding of Montpellier obviously recognized that Big Business (mainly Big "we have just what you want" Retail) would be the economic engine of their revived city. Then they turned around and OK'd those regimented fascist-Stalinist buildings of the Antigone residential area.

Back in Calvisson (a very small village on a hill) we rested a while in our stone-walled room, then walked out in a light rain to "the" pizza restaurant. Much more quiet and refined than most pizzerias we've visited in either the US or Italy.

A still smaller village with an even sweeter life

On Saturday, Roz finally got her drive along a gorge, though this time along the bottom. We wound along from Calvisson northward to a village squeezed into so small a valley that they had to fold it. St.-Guilhem-le-Déserte has one long street that bends into a hairpin passing itself coming and going, separated by only one row of buildings.

The locals were having an "Olive Fair" (we had seen posters in Montpellier). This amounted to about three tents with the usual tables piled with bottles and sample dishes. Not really doing much business, but both visitors and locals were having a good time, and they were friendly to us strangers.

But the peak experience was lunch outside a café in the tiny central plaza. Everything that you come to rural France for was there-- simple food, light wine, and dappled sun through a huge gnarled plane tree that almost filled the plaza.

(Go to previous day's post.)