On the blog this week, current French & Philosophy student, Laurence, talks about his adventures in the south west of France over the summer.
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For three weeks in July, I worked at La Giraudière, a volunteering and cultural immersion project run by a mixture of Anglophones and Francophones in Charente, Southwest France. This provided a brilliant opportunity to use French in a rural setting with both locals and French SNU (Service National Universel) volunteers. We also had the opportunity to mix with such a variety of people – including fellows students, retirees, and holidaymakers. Alongside French people, we met others from Romania, Ireland, Australia, and Iran. Meals were a communal affair and we each would take turns cooking – with both positive and negative results!
My girlfriend – for whom I had to translate quite a lot! – and I would work three days each week on the restoration of a house dating from 1902. We sanded wood, painted doors, and bleached floors atop stepladders. For the remainder of the week, we would cycle to the nearest lake and go swimming or take day trips to regional points of interest. These included the towns and cities of Bordeaux, Angoulême, and Libourne.
In Bordeaux, we enjoyed visiting the Cité du Vin – the city is, after all, noted for its expertise in winemaking. This museum contained high-tech exhibits across seven floors, including one which recounted the history of champagne. Its bubbles discovered by mistake during a tempestuous voyage across the Channel, French merchants realised that the English enjoyed the novelty of the champagne wine’s fizz. They contained the fizz with the invention of the cork (for too much gas would smash the glass bottles) and profiteered off this happy accident! Alongside fascinating nuggets of information like this, our museum visit ended with a free glass of local red or rosé from the rooftop terrace.
We especially enjoyed Angoulême for its murals. With the help of an art trail map, we saw over thirty murals across both the new and old towns in this student city that is the French capital of stop-motion animation and the bande dessinée. A statue on our arrival into the train station lauded this “neuvième art” and locals were happy to direct us (in their rapid Charentais dialect!) to some of the most impressive works of public art.
In Libourne, I was able to stock up on books for my degree! With prices for novels set by the French state, the cashier explained to me, independent bookshops are not undercut by big chain stores. This allows for a thriving book trade in French towns like Libourne. We saw similar literary trends in Paris (where we visited for a few days before heading South), as well as in bookshops along the sea front in the blustery beach town of Royan, whose concrete modernist cathedral make me think of home – Coventry.
Despite all this, perhaps the ‘Frenchest’ moment of the trip occurred during a visit to our nearest village, Brossac, where we discovered an automatic baguette dispenser (pictured). For just 70 cent, one could purchase a fresh baguette (somehow still hot!) which slid from a chute in the machine. Modern technology clearly finds a way.
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Merci, Laurence!