Travelfood

Côte d’Azur or south of France offers warm weather in spring and autumn, when northern Europe still or already freezes. Money-studded names such as Nice and Monaco drive off poor tourists but there is less expensive and much more interesting to explore in the area. Rustic villages of Provence such as Aix-en-Provence, St-Paul-de-Vence and Grasse are beautiful, but even better is found farther away. Travelling by train along the Rhône valley through the Dordogne mountains or in Gascogne or in the Pyrenée mountains from Lourdes are guaranteed experiences although they are not the most popular tourist routes. There is not much to see in Marseille, which is not one of the tidiest cities in France either.

The most beautiful of them all, however, I found in Saorge, which is a hidden small town at a steep cliff by the Train des Merveilles train route from Nice towards the Swiss border. The whole town population seemed to be gathered one Sunday outside the only grocery store in town in order to fill their cups with wine from cardboard wine boxes and in a joint drunkenness enjoy the silence of the mountains and the church bells.

French food is tasty, there is no argument about that. I have written before a bit about French dishes and here is more. On the French coast a lot of fish is prepared, for example fish and seafood soup, and that is when the legendary bouillabaisse soup is involved. This dish is awfully expensive because of its rare saffron spices, but the other fish soups are equally good. In Nice it is easy to eat local and in-expensive by choosing socca, which are crepes made of chickpea flour. Salad nicoise with tuna, beans, boiled eggs and sardines is tasty, but not particularly unique or difficult to prepare yourself. Garlic snails (escargots) are easy to retrieve in restaurants with fixed tourist menus, but they are not easy to slip from the plate to your mouth! You will probably have your best culinary experiences by trusting your luck and taking your chance on an exotic cheese and cold cuts in a grocery store and enjoying your choices in a local park.

Independent travellers in France and Italy are often struck with troubles, when they are stuck in a rural town during a sudden transport strike. Local, regional or national bus or train personnel might do a walkout from their jobs for several days without pre-warnings or any information in other languages than their own. When one of those profession groups walks out, it affects all the others and the risk is even doubled when the traveller’s plan involves a border crossing and the profession groups of two countries. Strikes are common in these countries and although the locals are used to them, the situation might turn out very costly for tourists, who try to find alternative ways to reach the destination or out of there.

Europe, food, France, travel, travel experiences