The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
France A country of two halves – each with its own je ne sais quoi
Great food, fine wine and ‘lovely moments’ are guaranteed, says Anthony Peregrine – but should you head north or south?
What do we want from a holiday in France – or anywhere else, for that matter? I’ve thought about this and concluded that the answer can be contained in five words: food, drink and lovely moments. Some of these moments will be exceptional, others restful, but they’re at the heart of a holiday. Today’s second question: now that France is back on the summer agenda, are we more likely to fulfil these holiday requirements in the north or south of the country? It’s a puzzler. Let us consider the evidence:
THE NORTH
For discriminating types who
don’t want the obvious
A great advantage: you’ve arrived as soon as you land at Calais, which cuts out the wild-eyed, family-murdering, car-abusing hurtle southwards. Plus France becomes beautiful only moments from the ferry. Along the Opal coast, fields and heath roll grandly to great headlands, Caps Blanc and Gris Nez. Down below, beaches are essentially endless, while towns and villages disarm with their modesty. Here, as across northern France, they are pleased to see us. Stand alone in a bar, and people will talk to you, even if you’re a bog-standard old man like me.
Further on, the vast Somme bay is a transport hub for every bird on the move; the Norman coast a mix of cliffs, of retro resorts (Fécamp, Étretat, Granville) apparently requiring bustles and boaters – and of vital military memories. Brittany’s seaside has rocky drama sufficient to most people’s needs but also a tendency to run through the full gamut of weather in one summer’s day. Thus, real Bretons wear windcheaters on top and shorts below, to cover all eventualities.
Inland, Brittany embraces the mystic and the mythic: Ankou, the local grim reaper sharing the land with tales of Arthur and some mildly bonkers Celtic excess. Normandy is more straightforward, with deep-green and doublecream landscapes where Postman Pat, were he French (Max Facteur?), would feel easy.
But the far north of France is all coal and industry, non? Non. Of course, there has been mining and manufacturing. That’s one reason normal people from northern England feel at home there. We know what’s vital, and that things don’t have to be pretty to be fascinating. Coal towns, villages and museums (Lewarde, near Douai, or Petite Rosselle in Lorraine) are rewarding reminders for all, but the surrounding territory, in the Ardennes or northern Lorraine, is as bucolic as you like. Visit fortified Rodemack and the Moselle for the evidence.
Crucially, the Vosges mountains are to hand. Thus one enters an upland world of forest and summit-topping châteaux testifying to Alsace’s ambiguity and fortitude. Best example of both is on the Alsacien plain, where Strasbourg mixes French levity and German thoroughness in France’s most civilised city. If you’re not won over by the waterways, half-timbering, the soaring sandstone cathedral and sense of life – commercial, religious, intellectual – lived liberally for centuries, I can do no more for you.
That said, northern France is not short of wonderful Gothic cathedrals, from Metz and Reims via Amiens to Rouen. (We’re omitting Paris here and, even if we weren’t, Notre-Dame is presently unavailable.) I’d agree with Monet. I’m most bewitched by that in Rouen – the artist painted it 30 times – not least because, once the cathedral has been appreciated, we can then follow the story of Joan of Arc, whom we torched here in 1431. Rouen’s Historial covers the life of history’s most extraordinary teenage girl in exemplary fashion.
In truth, northern France is good at summoning our past, both dubious and exemplary. On the border of Normandy and Brittany, the sublime Mont-SaintMichel – France’s most majestic monument – caused us all sorts of headaches during the Hundred Years War. More pertinently, we can trace both world wars across lands where so many of our forefathers are buried. A sense of duty gives rise to the most moving visits you’ll ever make.
Then we need to drink and eat. Northern France doesn’t stint on alcohol – from Chablis via Champagne to the beer culture in the estaminets of the Hauts-de-France. Normandy has fine calvados, though I retain serious doubts about cider, Norman or otherwise. Meanwhile, you can eat moderately around here, but it’s a lonely endeavour.
Alsace stokes diners with choucroute and the three-meat baeckeoffe stew; the north pitches in with potjevleesch jellied meats served with shipping quantities of chips; while Brittany will try to fob you off with crèpes. Go instead for the seafood platters or kig ha farz hotpot. Normandy thrives on beef, butter and cream. So will you, though I’d put off the cholesterol check for a couple of weeks after your return home.
THE SOUTH
For sensual spirits who need the sun
There’s no arguing: the littoral and landscapes of southern France are as intense as anywhere else in Europe. You’ve seen the photos of the long Atlantic coast, its rollers hurling surfers about; of the unkempt playgrounds of the Languedoc seaside; and of the creeks and sunlit sands of the Riviera where the international well-heeled having been idling for two centuries or more. The finest beaches are often on the islands – Ile de Ré and Noirmoutier in the Atlantic; Porquerolles off Hyères in the Med – but there’s not one anywhere where you wouldn’t want to spread your towel.
Similarly inland, the photos tell no lies. Provence really does dazzle – right now, in early July – with blue-mauve waves of lavender, notably around Sault and across the Valensole plateau. The effect is of natural purity, hypnotic adornment for what is France’s foremost playground. As the land rises to the southern Alps, so might some dynamic men and women take on hiking, biking, riding, gliding, climbing, rafting and any other sinew-busting activity. An apogée is reached at the Verdon Gorge. Europe’s version of the Grand Canyon offers nature on a supernatural scale, sheer drops of 2,500ft, exhilaration for the intrepid and terror for those with the head for heights of an earthworm. Believe me.
Beyond, the real Alps rise magnificently. A good way in is along the Ubaye Valley to Barcelonnette – where, from August 6-15, you’ll be bumping into mariachi bands. Ubaye emigrants made business fortunes in early 20th-century Mexico. The little town celebrates its successful sons with annual summer Fêtes Latino-Mexicaines. If you’re nearby, do go. Of all the south’s thousands of summer festivals, this is by no means the least jolly.
That said, the choice of mountains in southern France is wide. On the Spanish border, the Pyrenees are imperious, from the Basque west end to Catalan east, by way of passes celebrated for contraband (then) and cycling (now). Elemental glories like the Cirque de Gavarnie may set the soul singing. In between the two giant ranges, the Massif Central – from Clermont-Ferrand south – offers less threatening uplands. Pastures are heavy with cows and sheep, the dairies rich with cheese, and life lived so that if you’re moving quicker than cattle, you’re going too fast.
Meanwhile, there’s been a sense of mellow wellbeing in the Lot and Dordogne forever. Prehistoric man set up an HQ round the Dordogne, then set about decorating caves in the Vézère valley and you don’t get more mellow than that. There is, though, a balancing tradition of truculence both here – peasant revolt is endemic – and further south. Across the rocky Languedoc hills and parched plain of garrigue and endless vines, they’ve generally been protesting about something: the Catholic church (Cathar heretics and Protestants were strong in the region), the plight of wine-producers or the result of the last rugby match.
But pugnacity flips over to loud conviviality, different programmes of the same hard-drive, at the turn of a corkscrew. Hey presto, you’re swept from revolt to festivity. You may experience this in Languedoc capital Montpellier, which adds on layers of elegance and culture. It lacks, though, the Roman roots of nearby Arles and Nîmes, roots expressed in great classical arenas and the Pont du Gard aqueduct, through which no waterworks have ever been more grandiose. In Provence, Marseilles is the port-city bad boy trying to go straight, and almost succeeding, while Riviera capital Nice cloaks decadence in sunlight, fine clothes and savoir-vivre, to everyone’s benefit.
These cities all have their monumental and cultural moments, though little outdoes the 18th-century centre of Bordeaux (not to mention the Cité du Vin, Europe’s best wine museum), the palace and papal memories of Avignon (not to mention continental Europe’s greatest drama festival, on now through July) or the medieval splendour of Carcassonne, (not to mention cassoulet, the local dish which assembles all southern feistiness into a bean-and-meat stew).
Then again, cassoulet is not really what we mean when we talk of the “Mediterranean diet”. Nor is the Marseille speciality, bouillabaisse – a scrum of the ugliest fish swimming in God’s ocean. No. The real Med diet is normal amounts of fish, veg, fruit, herbs, cereals and olive oil. It’s so damned healthy only appropriate consumption of pastis and Provençal rosé wine gives mortality a chance. Subsequently, your mind might turn to a siesta, not necessarily taken alone. If I may, I’ll leave you to it.
The landscapes of southern France are as intense as anywhere else in Europe