Street scene in Dieppe
A ferry links Newhaven in the UK with Dieppe in France, and the crossing takes four hours. We drive on board in our electric car, with the aim of touring France in a vehicle many consider more suited to local trips. I want to test that notion – and have a holiday too, of course.
I check my facts on the two ports and learn from the internet that Newhaven has a population of 12 000 and Dieppe 30 000. That might explain part, but not all, of the difference between them.
In no fairness to Newhaven, it’s a bit of a dump. By contrast, Dieppe would draw in as many tourists as Rye (say) if you relocated it to the south coast of England. It has shabby-chic buildings, seafood restaurants, a picturesque harbour, and all the rest of it. The phrase benign neglect springs to mind when I survey Dieppe – a phrase that applies to many places in France – whereas on the less fashionable parts of the English coast I see only neglect. Yet Dieppe isn’t fashionable or remarkable by French standards. Benign neglect works best when the sun shines. In this respect Dieppe has no advantage over Newhaven but still looks better.
The traveller from Sussex encounters familiar geology on the north coast of France – the shingle beaches – the chalk cliffs. Yet even the cliffs around Dieppe look wilder and more Cornish than those near Newhaven.
I voted remain, but I try not to put down brexity old Blighty without good reason. England has its plus points. Our dense network of public footpaths gives us better access to the countryside, for one. Also the eye often finds more to please it in the rural architecture north of the Channel. You sense that the French farmer or country-dweller has a utilitarian aesthetic. France excels in its towns – small and large – and has fine scenery south of the northern flatlands. In the north, however, you can speed across the agricultural plains and enjoy the wide skies. On the downside, cloud can hang around like a dead blanket on the continent – in contrast to our ever-mobile island sky.
Some of the villages between Normandy and the Loire have rows of single-storey buildings strung along either side of the road, reminding me of Scotland – among them Saint-Jean-d’Assé where my teenage pen-friend lived. He would write in French and I would reply in English. Old school letters – pen and paper.
I use the word England above because I want to compare like with like – southern and midland England with northern France. Scotland and Provence are apples and pears – you can’t compare them. A comparison between Brittany and Cornwall – or Wales – might make sense but I don’t know Brittany well enough.
Parc Manceau – near Le Mans
I chose the above image to accompany my thoughts on EV travel in France. It also fits my theme because of Le Mans’ association with motor vehicles. The 24-Hour Le Mans race happened during our stay – a fact we only realised on our way home.
From the media you get the impression that you will run into big trouble if you take your EV on a long journey. And, in fairness, you do need to plan your trip in advance. Think of rapid charging locations as staging posts a hundred miles apart – like desert oases. You set your satnav to the next oasis rather than your final destination. As with oases, you need an alternative in mind in case you find a patch of wet mud instead of a waterhole. With an EV you don’t wait until you’ve got 10% left in your battery and then look around for somewhere to replenish it.
On French soil fear of the unknown subsides in the face of charging infrastructure at least as good as the UK’s. That shouldn’t surprise the traveller. A larger country (like France) still needs to have its chargers not too far apart – so it probably needs more of them. Yet France has a similar population to the UK so fewer drivers converge on each location. The French apparatus also seems newer and faster on the whole. You encounter the same niggles as at home – lack of standardisation for example. When your smartphone or PC plays up you switch it off and on again or something along those lines – and you need to learn a similar repertoire of charge-point tricks. Hang up the cable and try again – do things in a different order – try another machine.
We travelled a thousand miles in France with no more delay than if we’d had a petrol car. After all, we’d want a half-hour break every hundred miles whatever the vehicle.
Parc Manceau – an upmarket retail park on the outskirts of Le Mans – typifies the better sort of charging location. Its retail outlets have large futuristic spaces between them – more space than people. What do they sell? I can’t see any customers behind the tinted glass. We enter a posh health food store in search of sticking plasters. Google Translate gives us sparadraps. Vous avez des sparadraps? Amazing. She understands. They really do call them that. Well I never.
A man shrugs his shoulders. I pick out the word aucun in his conversation with another driver and fear the worst. Did he not manage to get a charge? Yet I have a successful charging session – so no worries in the end.
A good charging location has toilets and a cafe. But here we have to walk to the other side of a dual carriageway to find such things. Luckily pedestrian crossings traverse the roundabout slip roads.
Parc Manceau is our second oasis between Dieppe and our overnight stop – Saumur. We charged earlier, close to the town of Orbec – with only a recycling point and an electrical substation nearby. This no doubt makes sense from the point of view of energy distribution – if not the convenience of the traveller. We used the opportunity to stretch our legs by walking a kilometre and back down a country lane.
French drivers have calmed down since I first drove here in the eighties. Now you often encounter 30 kph limits in villages and towns – perhaps more often than in the UK. The largely patient motorists will stop for you if you wait at a pedestrian crossing. One senses that Gallic eighties man with his roll-neck sweater and tapered Citroen has gone for good. People everywhere have become more herbivorous during the intervening years.
Speaking of changes since the eighties, the infamous à la turque toilets have also disappeared. But the urinal sightlines will still scandalise the over-fastidious Brit. What do the French make of the Anglo-Saxon discussion about all-female spaces? Men and women share toilets in France with little fuss. Locks on cafe toilet doors often seem flimsy and temperamental. I get trapped in one and have already composed in my head the French words I intend to shout. A man, desperate for a pee, yanks the door open from the outside and saves me the embarrassment.
And what’s happened to continental electrical sockets? I’ve brought all my adapters with me and only one fits. The others have prongs too small for the holes. Did I buy them originally for France – or maybe Switzerland? I can’t remember. I do recall having some trouble in Switzerland with non-standard sockets. The whole business mystifies me.
Château de Saumur – on the Loire
I struggle to think of a town in the British Isles with such a fine skyline – and standing on such a wide river. You could certainly write home about Saumur – and arriving here from the north, you think Why go any further? A long bridge joins the central part of the town to an island in the 300-metre-wide river Loire. Another bridge crosses a narrower river channel to the north of the island.
The town buzzes with activity – pavement cafes – restaurants. The townsfolk have come out onto the streets to lead their charmed lives. In a huge free car park a group of people burst spontaneously into song. An old-school merry-go-round sits in the main square. Children run about laughing. Women wear summer dresses that in other countries remain virtual in catalogues. I recently read a piece describing the French as a people who live in paradise yet think they live in hell. (This in reference to their political attitudes.) One has to acknowledge, of course, that not every French person lives in a place like Saumur.
We visit a Lidl in Saumur – north of the Loire – to use its rapid charging point. This seems a poorer – though still picturesque – part of town. While we wait for the car to charge we walk down the road and order coffees in a cafe/bar. A classic scene plays out. The two foreign tourists – the eccentric and loquacious local men propping up the bar – the long-suffering waitress who has to interact with the men but also keep up civilised appearances with the foreigners. I sense a compensatory politeness in her dealings with us. It reminds me that the UK no longer has these all-male spaces. Pubs once served that purpose – but no longer. That sort of pub has gone out of business. Betting shops perhaps? I never enter them so I can’t say.
Sign in Turquant
You see a lot of wolfie breeds like the above in France. I remember taking the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry as a foot passenger around 1980. I went with a friend who taught modern languages. We got on the train from Dieppe to Rouen and walked three miles out of the city in search of a campsite, but found none. Seeing a detached house with a large garden my friend knocked on the door. Can we put our tent up in your garden? he asked the young woman of the house – in French. You’ll have to wait until my husband gets home, she said. They had three alsatians in a cage in that garden. The fierce dogs that yapped all night – the controlling husband – it all seemed to fit together.
For me, visiting France means trying to speak the language. I don’t like to launch straight into English in any country – so I generally make an effort. But this year a question occurs to me. How would I respond to an English tourist trying to speak my language? Usually, of course, you get a reply in English because the French person susses you out as a foreigner. But suppose I fancy myself fluent in French. I teach French or lecture in modern languages at a university. How will I react to that reply in English? Will I take umbrage? Or maybe they won’t rumble me on account of my perfect pronunciation? If a French tourist came up to me in London and asked me the way I wouldn’t respond in French.
None of this applies to me of course but I can’t help thinking about it.
On one occasion I find out what it feels like when a French person makes no assumptions about my fluency. I approach a young man at a reception desk armed with my little French sentence – J’ai une réservation pour ce soir – pausing for a millisecond after the une to re-arrange my throat to generate enough friction for the following r. The man overlooks my ineptitude and launches into a complex French explanation of the hotel charges. Delivered in English this sort of thing would likely go in one ear and out of the other. In French it wooshes over my head – and I respond okayee with a smile to match his grin. Perhaps you would rather I spoke English? he says. Yes that might be a good idea, say I. I ponder the subtext here. You cannot win us over by making a token effort to speak our language – as one might offer beads to the natives. If you come to our world you must sink or swim – or not attempt to swim at all. Or did I read too much into this exchange?
On another occasion I deploy my j’ai une réservation in a restaurant. The woman at the counter responds playfully and with a heavy accent. You need to speak to zis woman! she says, with a hand flourish towards her adjacent colleague. Okay I will speak to zis woman! I reply, taking my cue from her playfulness – as though bantering in the UK with somebody putting on a funny French voice. Immediately I remember where I am and realise my error. I squirm, then console myself. She said zis after all, so she won’t see anything funny in zis – and won’t think I’m taking the piss. At least I hope not.
Tour guides address us in rapid French and I understand snatches of it here and there. Maybe they speak a dialect in this region? I say to myself to protect my ego. We’re pretty far south after all. More likely they speak standard French and I’d need weeks to adjust to its rhythms.
I hang around in the interior of a cafe with the intention of paying the bill – lazily hoping that my body language will suffice. The girl says Que voulez-vous? Dites-moi – and I take the dites-moi to mean Speak up! Why are you just standing there? But then I hear it again in another context and realise it has the same function as How can I help you?
Yes – I do try to speak the language but I also recall the late Alan Wicker’s advice. In a tight spot in a Third World country you should always speak English even if you know the local language. Put the corrupt guard or police officer at a disadvantage rather than yourself. I doubt I’ll ever need that advice in the Third World – I have no intention of going there – but it might come in useful in the First.
And what about the French as a people? What do I know? You’d have to live among them to pronounce on that. I meet waiters, shopkeepers and hotel staff for the most part who seem slick, efficient and polite in a detached and professional sort of way. No sooner do you sit down or enter a shop than you get a greeting. Bonjour monsieurdame! Coming from England you doubt that the mere act of sitting at a table outside a cafe will elicit any response. But here someone will emerge to take your order within seconds and deliver it with panache. I can relate to them. I like to get things done and out of the way in short order. I have a touch of the Type A under my placid exterior.
Entrance to Fontevraud Abbey
I only noticed the figure in the upper window – head in hands – when I viewed this photo later. For me it adds a lot to the image – out of all proportion to its prominence. How curious to see somebody like that in a window above the entrance to a major historic site.
We pay our fee and view the abbey – something we rarely do since we prefer to avoid getting drawn into such places – but the promise of Plantagenet effigies intrigues me. Eleanor of Aquitaine lies here inter alia. Guidebooks take it for granted that we become historians on holiday – and we tourists rarely question the role assigned to us.
The potential for exhaustion hangs about a place such as this – the crowds and the heat. Even the photo evokes exhaustion. Luckily this extensive site seems able to absorb and dilute the visitors. The abbey church has a minimalist feel – walls – pillars – windows – no pews – and the four effigies: Eleanor of Aquitaine – her second husband Henry II of England – her son Richard the Lionheart – her daughter-in-law Isabelle of Angoulême, widow of King John of England. You can also watch the swifts that nest in every crevice of the cloisters’ roof – look at the wall paintings – admire the herb garden. An animated display gives a brief biography of Eleanor – a survivor (by all accounts) who lived into her eighties. A patrician Gallic historian explains in a video how the abbey survived intact – partly on account of its use as a prison until 1963.
I think of one of my university friends who studied medieval history and who would have enjoyed this place. He became a butler in Toronto and finally a monk. He saw a spiritual value in service – and servility.
Before the visit – in the cool of the morning – we did a 12 km walk on paths and tracks to the east of the abbey. My app shows French footpaths in violet – few and far between except near popular places like this – and often more road than path. Yet this doesn’t much matter because French country lanes have little traffic. The French countryside – the woods, fields and flora – differs little from the English once you get away from the built environment. Villages and towns make France what it is. I spot maybe two wildflower species I’ve never seen in Sussex – among many familiar ones. A few days later – near the River Dordogne – we find narrow footpaths through the woods – like English ones, though without the stiles.
Scene in Sarlat
Driving south, we find a second place as nice as Saumur. Sarlat-la-Canéda, in the Dordogne, evokes the Cotswolds with its honey-coloured stone. Guidebooks describe it as the most perfectly preserved medieval town in the region. On a street plan you see a finite network of narrow streets and alleyways. On the ground you can fancy yourself in an infinite maze.
Pavement cafes and restaurants abound in the narrow thoroughfares – but my guidebook says they are tourist traps for the most part, serving indifferent food. This seems odd since Sarlat has a famous weekly food market and sits in the Périgord – a region renowned for its comestibles. Hereabouts you can gorge yourself on dubious foie gras – magret de canard – or the uncontroversial truffle.
A sculpture of three geese stands near the centre of the network of streets. We can’t decide whether to view it as a celebration of French food culture or a memorial to its victims. Wandering to the east of the town we come upon a farm advertising pig meat using an image of three happy piglets. I try to guess how this would go down in the UK. Not well I imagine. We Brits prefer sanitised hypocrisy to the reality of eating animals. By the way I once inadvertently ordered foie gras in a restaurant in London. It had the consistency of soft lard and hardly any more flavour. A small teaspoon of the stuff would have sufficed but they gave me a big dollop.
Notwithstanding my negativity about fatty goose liver and some of its eateries, Sarlat is exceptional by any standards. If you plonked it down in England it would enter the premier league of tourist attractions. You see very little tat about the town. It oozes quality and bon chic bon genre. The smooth, clean, shiny pavements look like somebody comes out to hose them down and polish them every morning.
Sitting at a pavement cafe I eavesdrop on a group of three English people – a man and a woman in their seventies and another man of maybe fifty. The woman comes across as impulsive and a little deranged – blurting out random stuff. A waitress tries to humour her. The older man seems posh in a ruddy-complexioned, straw-hatted and check-shirted sort of way. The younger man has a working-class London accent. I have the two oldies down as leftovers from the English invasion of the Dordogne that started in the late sixties. The sun – or alcohol – has finally caught up with the woman. The older of my two guidebooks dates from that heyday of the English middle-class love affair with the Dordogne. Class markers and travel habits have changed over the years – not to mention house prices – and people now visit an eclectic mix of destinations. A world has gone, with only fragments surviving.
Blackthorn 