Bonjour, cou cou!
It’s July and that can only mean one thing – the Tour de France…. Oops no, it means another thing too – Bastille Day!
Tour de France fever is well and truly under way and will start today, 5th July in the UK before making its way to France and Le Touquet – just down the road from where I live. The French leg kicks off on Tuesday and we’ve been posting some vintage TdF photos and fun facts on our FB page all week. Here’s a fact we didn’t post, the TdF organisers book 1200 hotel rooms each night of the race for the riders, staff, press and tour personnel. You can imagine what that does to hotel room prices can’t you?
Bastille Day is the most fun and biggest celebration holiday in France and a key date for lots of things. For instance where I live it is traditional to pick green walnuts before Bastille Day for making vin de Noix. It’s a very easy recipe which you can find here, I like it chilled and my French friends often offer it as an aperitif (before dinner) or a digestif (after dinner).
Bastille Day is also the date by which residents must get their hedges cut according to my neighbours! If you have a home in France and your hedges are too high (over 2m) the Mayor may instruct a professional to cut your hedge and send you the bill if you don’t get it done by 14th July I’m told.
Wishing you all a bon weekend from France
Janine
Editor, The Good Life France
This week’s top features:
Bourges the beautiful Cathedral City of the Loire: This place is simply stunning, medieval streets, 500 half timbered houses, Roman towers – and I went to a tea room in one of them that is truly gorgeous. (ps am I the only person who thought the word Bourgeois came from Bourges? pps I was wrong!)…
Bourges in photos: It was so incredibly beautiful in this city we had to do a photo gallery!
Chavignol – a famous cheese and oodles of charm: This tiny little town of no more than 200 people has been making cheese for 500 years – I stopped off there for a nibble…
Montpellier’s best restaurants: Lucy Pitts reviews two restaurants and discovers they have one thing in common – delicious and tasty fare…
Sancerre: A town, an area and wine – they’re all called Sancerre and they are all sensational – read all about my visit to Sancerre…
Sancerre photo gallery: Perched up high on a hill with magnificent views over the vineyards that surround it, Sancerre is magnificent, we couldn’t resist making a photo gallery for you…
Prieuré d’Orsan: A 12th Century French priory in the Loire Valley that is now a hotel and has the most beautiful gardens – words cannot describe just how spectacular it is so check out our photos…
The Orient Express to Paris: Linda Matthieu lets the train take the strain… what strain? She took the Orient Express from Venice to Paris and lived it up like an A-Lister!
Tour de France French fever in the mountains: This year the Tour de France has more mountain stages than ever before, we take a look at the peak towns…
Route de la Tour de France: Want to know where the tour is going to be – here’s a route plan. Remember the famous publicity caravan goes through about 2 hours ahead of the riders and their passage takes about 45 minutes…
D-Day 70 Normandy: The June D-Day anniversary may have gone but there is still plenty going on. The battles raged for 100 days after D Day and so there are 100 days of events in Normandy…
UK Drivers warned against speeding: Driving over the speed limit is a serious offence in France. Those long, clear auto-routes might look tempting but don’t do it – you could be fined, be banned from driving in France or have your car confiscated…
How to make the most of the Cote d’Azur: a new initiative in the Cote d’Azur is bringing loads of great activities to visitors at huge savings. We’ve not been sponsored for this feature, we really do think its a great idea for visitors…
Thank you everyone for sharing our features via the buttons at the bottom of the page – we really really appreciate it…
