The holiday season has begun here
in France beginning today the fourteenth of July, know in the UK as Bastille
Day it is a national French holiday. The
annual French holiday season is unlike Great Britain is very short, just six
weeks from mid-July until the end of August.
During this period there is a mass migration from cities and towns all
across the country on the fourteenth to coastal and mountain resorts in a
lemming-like madness. Many towns become
almost ghost towns as people escape for their annual vacation.
This first weekend of the season
sees the biggest traffic jams of the year with queues anything up to twenty
kilometres at autoroute toll booths, sadly this weekend sees also the greatest
number of road deaths each year.
The area where we live in deepest
southwest France is very picturesque with many ancient villages and towns,
beautiful scenery and steeped in history.
Naturally many visitors come here to enjoy a holiday, when I say many I
mean in their thousands – one nearby village has a normal population of some
fifteen hundred which swells at the summer peak to seven to eight thousand!
Naturally all local businesses
welcome this annual influx because generally
it is the one and only chance to make any money throughout the whole
year so, of course, prices go up in cafés and bars, restaurants, many shops and
tourist attractions as well as hotels, camp sites and other tourist centred
features. This is the time of year when
the local people do not eat out nor have coffee or drinks out, it’s no great
hardship because it is only for six weeks of the year, we have the other forty
six all to ourselves!
Of course shops etc become very
crowded, it is difficult if not almost impossible to eat out should we have to
without a reservation but without our annual visitors the economy would suffer
badly. The département in which we live,
Lot-et-Garonne, is officially the third poorest in the whole of France, the
main economic activity being farming (cattle, plums for prunes, hazelnuts) and
tourism so any additional income is most welcome.
Am I complaining? No, not really. Yes there are the extra long queues in the
shops and possibly a little traffic congestion but not much to speak of. Probably the most dangerous result is from
drivers who do not know the local area or are complete strangers to the country
because the French system of road markings, roundabouts and the give way to
other traffic rules are so varied and in some places very complex.
For example a local roundabout
has just three roads leading onto it so in British eyes that should be very straightforward. Not the case – one road at the roundabout
there is a stop line which means exactly that.
Taking the first exit presents no problem, if, however, you wish to take
the second exit there is another stop line halfway across the roundabout where
traffic entering has precedence.
Traffic from the right at that
point may take the next exit without any problem but if wishing to take the
second exit then there is another stop line again halfway across the roundabout
where traffic from the right entering the hazard must be accorded right of
way. The next problem arises because
that traffic that has right of way to take the first or second exit.
There is a certain amount of
entertainment then to be had observing the antics of ones fellow road users at
this roundabout which most locals during the holiday season treat with great
circumspection. Probably the best and
safest policy is should there be any uncertainty as to another drivers possible
antics then stop and let them have right of passage! As may be imagined there are a considerable
number of minor collisions at this site during the summer, perhaps the local
body repair shop would attract much business of they had a representative
present handing out business cards!
All of the foregoing may sound like reasons not
live here but the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages, believe me. Would we choose to live anywhere else? Emphatically not!
