the french

There's a lot of strong opinion expressed about the French from travellers. It seems that people will have a lot to say both positive and negative. It's puzzling that they are subject to such frequent and strongly-expressed opinions compared to other nations . Why is this?
I think it made us interested in seeing how we found people there.
We were a bit apprehensive about stories of people insisting on being spoken to in french (Jenny knows basic french but I know very little) and also tales of French rudeness and arrogance. Here are a few doodles of French stereotypes......

Firstly I would say it is true that the French are definitely keen for you to try to speak their langauge. It's worth starting off in very simple French at the start even if it only to apologetically ask if they speak English - I think most would not be impressed by someone presumptuously launching into English from the outset, especially given that many French did not seem to speak much English at all. Regardless of their English skills, they seem to really love their mother tongue and want you try to use it even if they speak better English than your broken French. It's like they are sure you will grow to love speaking their pretty, soft language as much as they do and perhaps do away with you ugly clunky one altogether. Without exception the french were very patient even with very patchy French so there is no need to stress about being fluent. Just giving it a try made most people we met warm to us quickly.
As for the other stereotypes of rudeness and arrogance, we cant say we found them there at all. Even in Paris people seemed very relaxed and casual, almost serene compared to other sizeable cities. They also seemed very patient as a whole. We often found ourselves farting about trying to find change for metro tickets, using automated machines incorrectly or bumbling onto the wrong places on roads and never once did we receive exasperated sighs or angry toots.
Their relaxed attitude to life definitely had an appeal to us. It was aslo reflected in the French landscape of unmanicured fuzzy fields of wildflowers and towns of softly crumbling stone covered in ivy.

last few of france and basel, switzerland

After four days of good music, stifling heat, portaloos and stinky & overexcited adolescents, we pedalled sleepily away from the festival and dragged ourselves to the nearest campsite to become rested and clean again. Then, functioning human beings once more, our final stop in France was Mulhouse, near the French border.

Sweet statue and Matthew in Mulhouse

The next day was au revoir to France, who chose to farewell us by closing all shops for lunch (12:00 til 2:30pm) and leaving us to starve. Everywhere closes for lunch every day in France but we never learnt and it kept catching us out. Matthew has had many a lengthy diatribe against France for this inconvenience - but actually I really love the way they stop everything and enjoy lunch together every day, and wish we had a similar perspective back home. When I try to express this to Matthew, he replies "Oh hogswash! I don't give a hoot about community wellbeing when it gets in the way of 24 hour megastores which can feed this badboy at any given hour" (pointing to stomach).

Basel is an impressive city with the Rhine rushing past its stately buildings. The Rhine moves quickly and we noticed people jumping in clutching a floaty and drifting downstream with the current before popping out somewhere else, often quite far downstream. People were doing this and just chatting away like they were going for a stroll. Usually the floaty was a clever little bag which carried their things (purse, shoes, towel etc) so they could just carry on from where they drifted to. We thought this would be a great way to commute to work (but it would only work one way).


Basel from above, me swimming in the Rhine.

At our Basel campsite, we were approached by a big, curious hedgehog one evening who sprung up under Matthew's pannier and peered through poor-seeing eyes at us for a while before running off into the bushes where we could hear him crashing about long afterwards.

Curious hedgehog, Matthew wishing he was one of the gang outside Basel's hippest nightclub "Friends bar"

eurockéennes music festival

Colin and Liz in their dear new bumblebee van (which they will be galavanting around Europe in soon), Reece + Matthew enjoying the blistering unrelenting heat.

There was a man selling helium balloons at the festival, a huge bunch which included characters like Spongebob Squarepants (Bob l'Eponge), Dora the Explorer and other Nickelodeon cartoons. On the first day of the festival while we waiting for the Dead Weather to come on, we heard a huge crowd of people chanting"Liberez Bob L'Eponge". Then we saw a Spongebob balloon go sailing up into the sky, followed soon after by a Patrick balloon (Patrick is Spongebob's best friend on the show). It was so funny, and it continued to happen throughout the festival. We noticed the balloon man had lots of Spongebob balloons the next day to meet demand, and a Spongebob was liberated at most bands we went to see. The photo is of Patrick floating slowly and dreamily into the sky behind good old Bob l'Eponge (the tiny speck at the top).

Lovely Charlotte Gainsbourg on the left, and a wonderful Egyptian group called El Tanbura on the right

Amanda, Matthew, Grant, Colin & Liz at LCD Soundsystem

Showing the euro's how to rock antipodean style as Australia's proudest cultural exports - Airborne hit the stage in a blur of bogan glory. "Get a chicko roll up ya!!" Colin yelled at one particularly beefy solo while squashing a beer can with his forehead. Magic!

from dijon to belfort

Matthew cycling along the canal towpath as we cycle into Dijon, and me looking out at the lake next to our Dijon campsite.

Matthew window shopping - we saw this Spongebob teeshirt and were very charmed/amused by the French name for him, "Bob l'Eponge" (Bob the sponge)

Our next stop, Dole - a pretty and ancient city with lots of water running through

Swimming!! We have been stopping for swims constantly to help us battle through the heat. Matthew in particular has a habit of jumping into any bit of water we are riding along, often with clothes on to help keep cool for longer.

The two pretty ponies on the left were standing like this strategically, each flicking flies off the face of the other with its tail. Clever! We noticed they had a donkey paddock mate who was not in on the scheme, but standing alone under a tree with flies all over his face. We felt sorry for him so gave him some carrot and brushed the flies from his poor face. Then Matthew gave him one of his mint & eucalyptus sweets and he absolutely loved it but I thought we better not give him any more. (Party pooper.)

One of the lovely painted canal boats. Lots of them are painted pretty colours and have plants all over the tops like this one.

Some shots of Belfort - on the right is "le lion" who is defending Belfort from the wall of the citadel

plus de france

Salut! It's been a while since the last post, but we now have a mini laptop which will make the fandangled internet more accessible and hopefully help us to post here more regularly. We've made our way from Paris south to the Loire River, then along that for a while before heading east. We are currently in Dijon, on our way to Belfort (near the border) where we are meeting Colin and Liz to attend a music festival which is on from the 1st to 5th July.

Cruising past a nuclear power station on the Loire River

Matthew playing table tennis with a wee french boy at a campsite

M passes out on arrival at a campsite after a long, hilly day

Considering going for a swim in this mountain lake

Crouching pig fountain

This is how they spell pony in french - very cute, I thought you'd like it Libs.

Parking at the supermarket. Actually, lots of supermarkets have bike racks just outside (not this one)

Matthew patting a donkey. The poor thing had flies all over it's face. We shooed them all away but I'm sure they came straight back after we left. We considered trading one of our bikes for the donkey but I'm not sure he'd appreciate lugging our panniers across Europe?

The minutest frog I have ever seen, who was nestled into a crease in my pannier.

A gorgeous canal bridge on the Loire River. This was designed by Gustave Eiffel and apparently is the longest in Europe.

One of the highlights of each cycling day is stopping for lunch. There are lovely little towns all through the countryside so we always find somewhere nice to bask for a while (when it's sunny! On rainy days we huddle in bus shelters/pogodas/anywhere vaguely dry and don't take photos.)

We have been camping every night since Paris, mostly in campsites but in a couple of wild spots too.

Brushing my teeth at camp in Foret d'Orleans (Orleans Forest)

Bois de Justice (woods of justice?) where we found a luxury campsite with swimming pool etc. Matthew thinking about justice (and perhaps pondering "liberte, egalite, fraternite" or something).

Pretending to be in the Tour de France - this starts soon and they have been re-sealing lots of road sections along the route.