La Mer, le Canal & les Pyrénées

[Jacques Vert]

How is the every day life in France / your accommodation?
The highlights and the attractions I understand but the everyday things - are they easy to manage?

Interesting question; I'm not sure how to answer it and even whether I'm qualified to.

Things are significantly more expensive than when we were here 5 years ago, but that is probably true of most countries. Petrol is around Eur1.65/l. Food in the markets is fresh and good quality especially fruit such as strawberries & blueberries but availability is drying up as we are now in autumn. Given our current exchange rate the food seems expensive. However, I have no idea about electricity, etc. What the cost of living is like for those working here is something I can't comment on. Although wine is cheap (except champagne), as are spirits (for example, a full sized bottle of rum is between 12 & 20 EUR, depending on the brand.

As far as I can tell the people in this part of France seem happy and are very patient. Life is more relaxed than in Aus; most businesses and all govt agencies close between 12 and 2 for lunch and almost everything is closed on Sunday (including most supermarkets on Suday afternoons). I wonder how some businesses survive as they seem to be closed more than they are open.

The language remains a challenge, even the French admit it is difficult; and some young people have told us they prefer to speak english as they find it easier despite the fact they have lived here all their lives.

Finding what you are looking for in the supermarkets is like looking for that needle in the haystack.

Driving is a challenge, not only because they drive on the right but also because they have some rules that seem crazy to us. When driving along what would be considered a through road, you have to give way to cars entering from side streets on your right unless they are at a stop or give way sign. There are pedestrian crossings everywhere and the pedestrians have right-of-way. Then there are the round-abouts, thousands of them. Some of them have bus lanes and bike lanes through the middle of them and some round-abouts have traffic lights as well. And then there are intersections with two small round-abouts adjacent to each other. Add in chicanes, speedhumps, numerous other traffic calming devices and very narrow streets.

 

[RooFlyer]

<French shrug>

 

[FlyingFiona]

This was the topic of an 'abandoned engineering' TV episode. As you observed, it was built incredibly strongly.



Just swoonsville ! Trying to visit next year. This also was the topic of a TV show, about the architecture and engineering of it. Remarkable.

I'd love to see the pulley system for hauling items up the mount in action!

 

[Jacques Vert]

I'd love to see the pulley system for hauling items up the mount in action!

Are you volunteering to go inside the wheel or will you supervise?

 

[FlyingFiona]

Are you volunteering to go inside the wheel or will you supervise?

Maybe I'll risk it and be in the basket!

 

[Freq Flier 2013]

Interesting question; I'm not sure how to answer it and even whether I'm qualified to.

Things are significantly more expensive than when we were here 5 years ago, but that is probably true of most countries. Petrol is around Eur1.65/l. Food in the markets is fresh and good quality especially fruit such as strawberries & blueberries but availability is drying up as we are now in autumn. Given our current exchange rate the food seems expensive. However, I have no idea about electricity, etc. What the cost of living is like for those working here is something I can't comment on. Although wine is cheap (except champagne), as are spirits (for example, a full sized bottle of rum is between 12 & 20 EUR, depending on the brand.

As far as I can tell the people in this part of France seem happy and are very patient. Life is more relaxed than in Aus; most businesses and all govt agencies close between 12 and 2 for lunch and almost everything is closed on Sunday (including most supermarkets on Suday afternoons). I wonder how some businesses survive as they seem to be closed more than they are open.

The language remains a challenge, even the French admit it is difficult; and some young people have told us they prefer to speak english as they find it easier despite the fact they have lived here all their lives.

Finding what you are looking for in the supermarkets is like looking for that needle in the haystack.

Driving is a challenge, not only because they drive on the right but also because they have some rules that seem crazy to us. When driving along what would be considered a through road, you have to give way to cars entering from side streets on your right unless they are at a stop or give way sign. There are pedestrian crossings everywhere and the pedestrians have right-of-way. Then there are the round-abouts, thousands of them. Some of them have bus lanes and bike lanes through the middle of them and some round-abouts have traffic lights as well. And then there are intersections with two small round-abouts adjacent to each other. Add in chicanes, speedhumps, numerous other traffic calming devices and very narrow streets.

Thank you for writing this. Very interesting to see the real life compared - in your case 6 months to just visiting a country for a few days. I’m interested in following your footsteps and spending 3 to 6 months in Europe at some point so following with great interest