A Day in the Life of Rural Southeastern France
Today I have a guest post from Leyla Giray from Backpacking Women on the Road.
Now I know what you must be thinking. . . “MJ, you’re not a backpacker.” Well, that might be true enough, but there’s all sorts of things backpackers can teach the rest of us about travel, and one of those things is how to enjoy things off the beaten path — like spending a day is the French countryside.
Not south enough to be Provence, nor north enough to be Alsace or the Vosges, this tiny corner of France hides between two massive mountain ranges - the Alps and the Jura - and is so off the beaten path you often only get here by accident.
Except if you live here, as I do, a big-city transplant to this most rural and proud region of France.
How can such a tiny beautiful pocket be only 45 minutes from Geneva, 1hr 15 each from Lyon, Grenoble and Chamonix, and an hour from the vineyards of Burgundy?
Welcome to the Bugey, where the grand Rhone River winds powerfully south.
It’s a calm day today. The snow has settled, turning the seasons upside down. Last week we were planting lavender and cleaning the kayaks. This week we’re shoveling snow.
I shouldn’t have worried. My neighbor, Patrick the wine-maker, beat me to it, unasked. He ran his tractor around the front of my house, piling the snow off to the side to allow me to drive out of the barn - my own personal snowplow.
Last week, before the snow fell, a horse appeared in my field. These things happen. The young farmer down the hill tells me it belongs to the mayor’s nephew and that my field is green and good for food. Seems to make sense.
The next day some plastic electrified fencing cropped up. Keeps the horse from running away. Makes sense too. Two days later, the horse, the fence and the greenery were gone.
In the afternoon I returned home to the sound of chainsaws. My neighbor thought (rightly) that my brambles had grown out of control, so he decided to cut them. Makes sense.
Continuing reading for more about life in Bugey. . . .
Today is market day, so time to shop. We have a supermarket, of course, what French town doesn’t? But many of us prefer the markets. The supermarket is good for cleaning products, hardware or cat food. For people food, two local markets feed us, rain or shine - or snow. As farmers clear the snow from their tables, we lift, squeeze, smell and yes, even taste, what’s on offer.
Today it’s fresh Brillat-Savarin, a local soft cheese that tastes like a mixture of butter and cream (and has at least twice the calories). And vollaille de Bresse - Bresse chicken, so tender you cut it with a fork and so tasty smothering it with a sauce would be a crime. A few berries have started appearing, and it’s a good time for squashes and pumpkin. No exotics here, thank you Monsieur le Maire.
It’s Saturday, and in this land nothing opens on Sundays. For those of us who work away in the city, Saturday is the only day for administrative chores: la poste to pay bills, la banque to get money, and la mairie - the town hall - to pick up electoral papers and find out what happened to the mayor’s nephew’s horse. Of course most chores can be done on the Internet - we do have fast connections here too. But few people do.
A quick trip to the bank - horror, my favorite bank teller has been moved to another town because she’s been too nice with customers. As one of the customers guilty of exchanged gossip and warm smiles, I cringe. But she’s happy with the change: her new boss doesn’t mind her being nice - he thinks it might be good for business.
When I first moved here I paid a courtesy visit to the winemaker’s restaurant down the hill. Madame Fagot immediately gave me her home number.
“We have strong men here, you know,” she said. “If you ever need anything, anything at all, you just give us a call. We’ll come up the hill.”
Madame also told me I had chosen a ‘good color’ for my shutters, a very local color, and that my roof was coming along nicely. My brambles, on the other hand, were another story.
You can’t live here if you have secrets. This isn’t a place, it’s a way of life, a slower life, away from the week’s noise and messiness and a step back into the past, into a life that hasn’t changed much since everyone’s parents’ parents’ time. And a life every other villager will know about.
Photo credit: flickr
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Tags: b5media, Bugey, flight attendants, flyaway-cafe, France, Switzerland, travel, travel & tourism, travel blogging, travel blogs, travel information, Travel Tips, vacationRelated Stories
POSTED IN: European Travel, Things to See & Do
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